


Infinite Shadow of the Soul

by Femme (femmequixotic)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:29:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1392826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmequixotic/pseuds/Femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance to stop Voldemort takes Snape and Draco back in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinite Shadow of the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written during the 2006 merry_smutmas fest on LJ for slytherincess, who requested a semblance of plot and an exotic locale such as Moscow or turn-of-the-century London. Well...I got close. :D 
> 
> (Just as a historical disclaimer, while I've tried to remain true to historical events and characterizations as much as possible, this is, of course, a work of fiction and as such is not meant to be a precise history of the events referred to within. Some liberties have been taken with actual events and with real personages. And, perhaps, even with Muggle physics. *g*)
> 
>  
> 
> _Note that this work was originally archived on Skyehawke and moved to AO3 when Skyehawke shut down._

_Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away.  
\--Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground_

****

Chapter One

The night was warm, overly so for June, but Draco shivered, his hands trembling still, his heart pounding. A quiet clatter in the dustbins at the end of the narrow alleyway sent him reaching for his wand. He pressed against the rough brick of the terrace house, willing the shadows to close around him, and fingered the portkey that he'd carried in his pocket at all times the past year.

He'd promised Mother, after all. 

The alley stank of days-old rubbish and piss, and the bricks were stained almost black with soot and grime from the silent smokestacks that loomed over the street. 

Snape had left him here with the instructions to stay quiet for the love of God if he valued his life, and for once Draco had merely nodded. After the events of tonight—his breath caught in his throat, rough and harsh; he didn't want to think about that. About the way the old man had fallen, his hair whipping around his pale face--- 

There was a rustle in the dustbins again, and Draco tensed, fingers tightening on the portkey, the silver of the brooch cool against his fingertips, just before a mangy cat twisted out of the shadows. Yellow-green eyes gleamed in the light from the sputtering lamp next to the kitchen door, and a plaintive miaow echoed against the filthy walls. 

"Get out," Draco snapped, kicking the cat sharply as it twined through his legs. "Stupid beast." 

A quick, annoyed swipe of claws left long scratches in his leather boots, and he cursed. They had been an early birthday present from his mother on her last trip to Milan. Draco dropped to one knee, refusing to consider what the dampness seeping through his trousers might be as he rubbed at the scratches with the hem of his robe. The cat hissed at him, and trotted off, tail swishing angrily. 

Draco _hated_ cats, had hated them since that wretched Kneazle of his mother's had bitten him when he was three just because he'd wanted to see if its tail was really as soft as it looked. 

He raised his wand. "Petrifi—" he began, but the door opened, and Snape stepped out, his face creased into a frown Draco had learned to recognise over the past year. He slid a small skeleton key in his pocket; the lamplight glinted off the iron bow. 

"What are you doing?" Snape buttoned his pocket, smoothed his hand over the black wool. 

"Nothing." Draco tucked his wand back into his robe and stood up, giving Snape a sullen glare. "I'm tired. And hungry." 

Snape warded the door, and the weathered wood glowed a dull red for the briefest moment before fading again into dark shadows and grimy glass. "Come." He pulled his robe tighter around him, and his mouth twisted down when he looked back at the filthy door. "They'll be expecting to find us here." 

Their footsteps echoed down the silent alleyway, and the shadows lengthened behind them, stretching black and grim across the dirty white street sign fixed to the corner house. 

The cat peered out of a rubbish bin, knocked over on the street. It hissed softly, ears flattening back, and a torn scrap of the _Evening Post_ , greasy and reeking of fish and chips and malted vinegar, drifted across the street. 

Draco thought he didn't care for Spinner's End at all.

\--------------------

It was raining in Leeds.

Draco followed Snape up the steps, waiting behind him curiously as he rapped quick and sharp against the glossy black door. The street was dark and wet behind them, save for a sweep of lights as a Muggle automobile turned the corner, the steady thump of those odd black arms scraping across the windowscreen. 

The lock rattled and the door opened slightly, enough for a pair of blue eyes and familiar hooked nose to peer out at them. "Severus?" a man asked, incredulously, and Snape pushed the door open, pulling Draco into the foyer behind him. 

"What are you--" the man began, tying his dressing gown hurriedly. He ran a hand through short, grayish-brown curls. "This is—-we weren't expecting you." 

Snape warded the door behind them. "Where is she?"

"Upstairs," the man said, eyes on Snape's wand as he slid it into his pocket. "Asleep. She's not been feeling well lately. Severus, what's going on?" 

Snape hesitated for a moment, then sighed. "It's a rum-do, Richard," he said quietly, and the sudden slip into a faint Northern accent pulled Draco's attention from the dusty side table and nicked cobalt glass vase of wilting hyacinths. He picked up a jade turtle and turned it over in his hands, nervously. He'd never heard Snape speak in anything other than his carefully modulated pronunciation. It was unsettling in a strange way. 

"Dicky, Severus. After thirty years you'd think you could call me by my proper name." 

Snape smiled faintly. "Thirty-seven and I still refuse to call you that ridiculous sobriquet." He looked away, back towards Draco, and his eyes were black and shadowed. Draco shivered, nearly dropping the turtle. He set it back on the side table, lining the small jade feet up with the prints in the dust. "They're after the boy and me now." 

Richard twisted the tie of his dressing robe around his hand. "You're in a fix then." 

"Yes." 

"Should I ask who _they_ are?" Richard glanced at the warded door, his unease evident. "Not those fellows of yours--" 

Snape cut him off. "Food. The boy needs to eat, and then to sleep." He pulled Draco forward, and Draco stumbled over his feet, falling against Snape's side. He supposed he should object to Snape using him in this manner, but he _was_ hungry and tired and cold and wet now even, and the thought of food and tea and a warm bed for a few hours stayed his tongue. 

"You know what Nan would say." Richard frowned at him. "Dance with the devil, get pricked by his horns." 

"And Nan was a vicious old cow who, might I remind you, put two bullets in her husband's knee to keep him from going down to pub," Snape snapped. "She was as daft as a brush and ought to have been in Bedlam." 

Draco blinked, looking at Snape out of the corner of his eye. He'd never considered Snape having a grandmother, after all. 

"I can't argue that." Richard sighed. "Right then. I'll put the teakettle on, and I think there's some bread and butter at least, and I suppose I could scare up some tinned soup if you really wanted--" 

He led them into the warmth of the tiny kitchen.

\--------------------

Severus added another splash of whisky to his tea. He'd regret it in the morning, he was certain, but he'd be damned if he would deny himself tonight. Not after--his mouth tightened.

Albus always had been a bloody fool. 

Richard settled in his armchair again and tossed a pack of cigarettes at him. "Mouthy little brat, isn't he?" 

Severus lit a fag and exhaled, leaning back into the threadbare chair with a snort. "One might say that. I take it he didn't care for his accommodations?"

"Said he was used to better." Richard laughed. "But the way he was eyeing that bed, I'd say it was all for show."

"It would be." Severus tapped the cigarette against the ashtray at his elbow. "He's young yet." 

"Yes." Richard poured himself a glass of whisky. "I knew you had a taste for them younger than you when we were lads, but I'd never have counted you as one who'd have a go for the twinks." 

Severus raised an eyebrow over his teacup. "Twinks." 

"My research assistant is one of you bent fellows," Richard said with a shrug, resting his glass on the arm of his chair. 

"I see." Severus exhaled a puff of grey smoke and set his teacup aside. "Much as I would love to be educated in the proper classification of a...twink as defined by your research assistant, Draco is most definitely not sharing my bed. Do give me a modicum more credit, you berk. He's barely seventeen." 

There was a moment's silence. "And yet you killed a man for him." 

"I made a vow." Severus shifted in his chair; it creaked beneath him. "It's complicated, Richard. The magical theory alone you'd not understand--" 

"Of course not, because I'm one of those what's-it-called--Midgles--" 

"Muggles," Severus said, suddenly weary and annoyed. It was an old, tired quarrel; one he'd had a thousand times with his cousin over the years. Dicky had never understood the differences between the two of them, had never seen why it was necessary for Severus to part with his father's family, had never been able to accept Severus's shame at his mixed heritage. Severus was certain he never would. 

He was, after all, merely a Muggle. 

Richard drained his glass. "You're a twat, you know." 

Severus glared at him. 

"But you're a twat who, at the moment, needs me," Richard said smugly, staring down into his empty glass, "which makes it even more delightful. At least for me." He reached for the bottle of whisky again. "So perhaps you should tell me exactly what it is I'm needed for, because I'm quite aware there are any number of places that would be far more pleasant for you to hide in." He looked at Severus over the rim of his glass, with that bright, too-knowing gaze that had annoyed Severus since they were children. 

Their fathers had been brothers, and Richard had been three when Severus had been born, which he was quite certain gave him leave to order his younger cousin about. Until, at least, Severus had, at the age of five, without thought, angrily banished Richard into the chimney, halfway between the ground and first floors. 

Mother had been pleased, of course, in her own quiet way, her hand warm and soft on his shoulder as she murmured to him that the Prince blood would out, but Father had beaten him, certain that Severus had done it on purpose and furious that he would be forced to explain his wife and son's shameful secret to his own family. 

Tobias Snape had never cared for anything abnormal. 

Richard, however, had thought it great fun, once the fear had worn off, and had been bitterly disappointed that he wasn't a wizard himself. In retaliation--or so Severus insisted--he'd thrown himself into the world of Muggle physics, quantum to be exact, the closest a Muggle could come to wizardry. 

There were quite a few times over the past three decades when Severus wished his mother had just left Dicky in the damned chimney. 

Severus sighed, and he gave his cousin a baleful look. He crossed his long legs and flicked the tip of his cigarette, sending ash flying across the carpet as he leaned forward. "I need your intellect, Richard, and you must know how it pains me to admit that." 

Richard snorted, taking another sip of whisky. He loosened his dressing gown, revealing plaid pyjama bottoms and a worn, stained t-shirt, cracked black letters advertising Timothy Taylor ale. "For?" 

Really, it was too easy, Severus thought, relaxing into his chair. The slightest stroking of ego--well, academics _were_ truly all the same, whether wizard or Muggle. Egotistical little children eager for recognition. "I think perhaps you might call it spacetime." 

His cousin's eyes gleamed. "Minkowski space or Riemann tensor?" 

Severus raised an eyebrow, amused. "Rackharrow's theory of time inversion, actually. The Dumbledorian variant--or what little there is of it." He looked away, the name twisting through him, sharp and painful as one of Poppy's seldom-used lances, and his hand shook as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth again. He wondered if he'd ever forgive the damned old bastard. "Do you remember when we tried to replicate the TARDIS in Nan's old grandfather clock?" 

Richard's sharp intake of breath echoed in the silent room. 

_The child was never far from the surface._ Severus stubbed out his cigarette, smiling faintly.

\--------------------

The sky outside the window was just beginning turn from velvet black to soft, smoky navy tinged with pinkish-grey. Rain still tapped at the windowpanes, streaming in long, wet rivulets down the warped glass.

Severus stood quietly in the doorway for a moment, robe folded over his arm, before a pale hand extended from the heavy blankets, beckoning him closer. 

"You might have owled, you know." 

Severus sat on the edge of the bed, taking his mother's hand in his. Her fingers were fragile, the skin thin enough to tear. "There wasn't time." 

Eileen Prince Snape had never been a beautiful woman. Years of beatings and arguments had taken their toll, but not as badly as the disease slowly eating at her body, at her magic. Her angular features were more pronounced now, skin stretched taut over sharp bones, and pain lines were etched in her forehead, around her dark eyes and thin mouth. It had been nearly two decade, seventeen years of watching his mother die before him, unable to do anything other than to slow the process, to make it less painful. 

It wouldn't be much longer he knew, his practical mind taking stock of her condition automatically, and he recoiled from the thought with the faintest shudder. 

"You did it then," Eileen said quietly, and her fingers tightened around Severus's. 

He brushed a lock of black hair, streaked with white, back from her cheek. "I made a vow." 

"Idiot boy." Eileen struggled to sit up, wincing as she pushed her too-thin shoulders against the pillows. Severus knew better than to try to help. His mother hated any sign of weakness from her failing body. She scowled at Severus, a familiar drawing together of thick, black brows. "And I'm not entirely certain if I mean you or the Malfoy brat." 

Severus didn't answer, staring instead at the rain running down the window. He was so damned tired of all of it. Albus had forced his agreement in the whole matter, after coming back with that bloody cursed hand, after he'd vowed to protect Draco--and the complexity of _that_ particular acquiescence was something he had steadfastly refused to examine for nearly a year now, Albus's gentle prodding be damned. He'd had no choice in either matter, and even when he'd stood in the middle of that wretched forest, his Gethsemane, practically begging Albus to let him free of his promise, the old bastard had merely looked at him over his spectacles and firmly told him he'd agreed to this and that was all there was to it. 

_I trust you, Severus, for a very specific reason, There are great things to be in your future, good things, and I do wish you would return my trust._

Severus had walked away from him then, angry and bitter, and not certain whom he hated the most at that moment--the Dark Lord or Albus. 

Or Draco. 

Idiot boy indeed. 

His mother's hand pressed against the small of his back, as oddly gentle and comforting as it had been when he was a boy and his father's strap had left wide, aching welts across his shoulders and legs. "Severus?" 

He ran a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. "I need to sleep." 

Eileen's hand moved away and Severus hunched his shoulders, immediately missing the soft touch. Christ, he was such a maudlin fool. He stood up and reached for his robe. "I've warded the house, so you needn't fear any unexpected visitors. We'll be gone before there's any possibility of them discovering us." 

"I'm not worried," his mother said quietly, leaning back against the headboard. She looked drawn and tired in the early morning light. 

"You should be." 

Severus kissed her temple quickly, suppressing a flinch at the faint scent of illness and decay that already pervaded her dry skin. Eileen touched his face lightly and smiled at him. "I've missed you." 

"Rest," Severus said, drawing away, his throat rough and tight. "We'll talk later." 

At the door, he looked back. She'd closed her eyes already, and he could see the pale bruises mottling her arms. The effect of Pyrites' injections, he knew, and the potions he sent monthly to the Healer, each brewed late at night when curfew fell and the beasts were ensconced in bed and unable to question his work. 

"Go sleep," his mother said tartly, her eyes still shut. " _Now,_ Severus, before you fall on your face." 

"Bossy cow," Severus replied, closing the door on his mother's smile. He sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. 

He pulled the key from his pocket. It was heavy, rough against his palm, and he swore it stank of blood even as he curled his fingers tight around it. 

There was work to be done. 

 

****

Chapter Two

Draco kicked the covers off, still half-asleep. The room was hot, almost unbearably so, and he groaned into the thin pillow beneath his cheek.

A creak of wood turned his head, and he blinked, groggy. Snape was sleeping across the room on a chaise lounge and the sight of his professor, dressed only in trousers and white shirt, curled into the faded brocade upholstery was impossibly surreal. Snape stretched and sighed, shifting in his sleep and his bare feet flexed, long and pale in the sunlight. 

Draco slid out of bed, hesitating only when Snape stretched again, and he reached for his robe, pulling it around him. 

He needed a shower, wanted one desperately--he had always hated being filthy--but he didn't know where it was or who to ask or even if Muggle showers were any different from wizarding ones, and he had no intention of waking Snape. 

Snape. 

Draco stared at him for a moment, taking in the dark hair tumbling over Snape's cheek, thick and stringy. Half-blood. His lip curled. He ought to have known. There'd always been something off about the man; he'd realised that in spite of his ridiculous hero worship. And Aunt Bella had hinted--

A soft sigh, and Snape shifted again, wrapping his arms tighter around his waist and pressing his face into the cushion. He didn't stir when Draco shut the door behind him with a soft click. 

He buttoned his robe as he made his way down the narrow staircase. Photographs lined the hideously floral-papered wall, Muggle snapshots in colour and black and white, oddly still and silent. 

One gave him pause, however, just above the last step. A family, it seemed--a thin, plain woman with black eyes and an ill-fitting Muggle dress, her dark hair twisted into a messy chignon, standing beside a boy only a few years younger than Draco himself, tall and gangly with bony wrists dangling from a too-short jumper and black hair hanging into dark, sullen eyes. Behind them was a hook-nosed man, wide-shouldered and scowling, his hand heavy on his son's shoulders, fingers digging into flesh. 

Not one of them looked happy. 

"You're awake then." Richard stepped out of the parlour, a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Severus still abed?" 

Draco nodded, silently, his palm rubbing against the banister. The Muggle unsettled him, and Draco very much disliked being out of his element. 

"I expect you'll be hungry again," Richard said, either ignoring Draco's unease or oblivious to it. Draco wasn't certain which was worse. The offer of food, however, made his stomach rumble, loud enough to be heard, which was embarrassing enough. His cheeks flushed, but he followed Richard into the kitchen, stopping only when he caught sight of the frail, sharp-eyed woman wrapped in a heavy dressing gown. 

She still wore her hair in a messy chignon at the nape of her neck. 

"Well, sit," she said calmly, reaching for her teacup. It was china, once part of an expensive set, Draco could tell from the near translucency of the cup, but the rim of gold was nearly worn off. "You may call me Eileen." 

He took the seat across from her warily. 

"Poach the boy an egg, Dicky," Eileen said over the teacup, and she watched Draco with bright, dark eyes. "And so you're the reason the Aurors are after my son." 

"Your son?" Draco blinked, surprised, and then tensed, mouth drawing tight. Snape. "Oh. I never asked for him to--" 

Eileen raised her hand, and Draco fell silent, staring down at the cup of black Darjeeling that Richard put in front of him. "I like milk," he muttered, and Eileen pushed the small pitcher towards him. He poured the milk to the rim of his cup, watching as it swirled into the dark tea, a twist of tan through black. 

"I could have done it myself," Draco said finally, and he lifted the cup to his mouth. Richard rattled a pan at the stove, sending water splashing. "And then _he_ showed up and--" 

"You do realise you're discussing a man's murder?" Eileen set her teacup down. "Rather callously, in fact." 

Draco didn't look at her. Couldn't. His throat was tight. "You don't understand." 

No one did. Of course. They'd not been brought before His Lordship and told quite clearly what would happen if he failed. To him, to his family, to the Manor. He was a Malfoy, and that was important to him; it always had been. He would do anything to protect the family, just as Grandfather Abraxas had done in his day. He'd grown up hearing Father's stories, after all. 

Draco knew his duty. 

He could still hear His Lordship's voice in his ear, feel his breath against his temple as he told him, in excruciating detail exactly how his parents would die should he fail. 

And failed he had. 

Draco blinked hard, refusing to give in again to the tears--after all, look how pathetic he'd been that time Potter had found him—and a hand settled over his, cool and soft. He looked up in surprise. 

"Perhaps I do understand." Eileen pulled her hand back, and Draco noticed the faint tremble in her fingers. 

"You're ill," he said, and flushed at how idiotic he must sound. 

Eileen merely smiled at him and drank her tea. "Eat," she said as Richard set a chipped plate of poached egg and toast in front of him. 

Draco had just picked up his fork when Snape walked in, dressed in his usual black robe and looking exhausted and drawn. Richard immediately poured a mug of coffee from the odd glass pot next to the stove and handed it to him; Snape drained it without a word, then held it back out for more. He sat at the table and ran a hand over his face, pushing back his hair with a sigh. 

"You let me sleep too late," he said, reaching for half of Draco's toast. Draco glared at him; Snape failed to notice. 

"Half one is not late, given the hour you arrived." Eileen plucked the toast from her son's hand and gave it back to Draco. "Mind our guest." 

Snape snorted into his coffee. "Guest, my arse." He gave Draco a baleful look. "Wretched nuisance is more like it." 

"Severus," Eileen said, and Snape stood up, setting his mug down. 

"Don't make excuses for the brat, Mother." Snape's mouth turned down. "He'll only turn them to his advantage."

"That's utter shite--" Draco broke off with a yelp as Snape pulled him out of his chair, jerking him up by the back of his robe, and his fork clattered against the plate. "What are you--" 

"Really, Severus," Eileen protested, setting her teacup down with a frown, "let the boy eat--"

"I've an errand to run," Snape said calmly, as if interrupting breakfast so rudely was an everyday event for him. Then again, Draco thought sullenly, it probably was. Honestly, the man had no manners. 

"And I'm required to accompany you?" Draco didn't want to go out. Didn't want to do much of anything, really.

"I'll be damned if I'm leaving you here alone to put either my mother or my idiot cousin--" that brought a sharp _oi_ from Richard, still standing at the stove "--in danger, particularly with Aurors running about. You've cocked things up enough as it is. I fully intend to keep an eye on you. So. "

"But I'm hungry," Draco protested, and Snape thrust a half of toast in his hand. The marmalade oozed through Draco's fingers. 

"Eat and walk." Snape pushed past him, only glancing back at the door. "Are you deaf?" 

Draco dropped the toast on his plate and wiped his hand on a serviette Richard handed him. "Thank you," he said stiffly to Eileen and she gave him a small, sympathetic smile. 

With a sigh, Draco followed after Snape, wondering what sort of errand two fugitives might have.

\--------------------

Diagon Alley was far too damned crowded for a Thursday.

Severus led Draco through the throng, his fingers tight on Draco's wrist, his other hand curled around the skeleton key in his pocket. Their glamours were adequate and highly unlikely to be suspected, but he wished to finish this as quickly as possible. 

"I can't believe you made me look like this," Draco muttered, and Severus glared back at him, pushing back a wisp of grey hair.

"Quiet or I'll hex your tongue to your teeth." 

Draco hissed sharply, but fell silent, slouching into his robe.

The boy made an adequate girl, Severus thought. His hair had been darkened, his eyes blued. It had been a practical choice, of course; the Aurors would not be looking for a grandfather and granddaughter, but he would admit a certain perverse satisfaction at Draco's obvious discomfort. Merlin knew the brat deserved a modicum of humiliation, and it had been an easy enough decision to hide him in a young girl's form. Draco had the face for it, really, far more delicate and sharp than his father's angular features. There were times over the years when Severus had wondered if Lucius, eager to provide a Malfoy heir, had performed a Generis Charm on the boy at his birth. 

The scarlet-clad goblin held the Gringotts door for them, eyeing Draco with interest, and Severus hid a smirk at Draco's look of horror. 

"Did you see that?" Draco poked his shoulder. "That--that--creature _winked_ at me--" 

Severus dug his fingernails into Draco's skin, pressing into the bone, and the boy winced. "Vault four-fifty-three," Severus told the wrinkled, bushy-eyebrowed goblin behind the desk and tossed the key on the counter. It clanged sharply against the marble, and the goblin peered at it for only a moment before nodding. 

"Griphook!" the goblin shouted, and a wizard in Auror robes looked up from down the counter, eyeing them curiously. 

Severus tensed for just a moment before another stooped goblin appeared, even more wizened than the first. The Auror turned back to his business, and Severus breathed out.

The sooner they left Diagon Alley behind, the better.

Griphook led them through a door at the end of the hall to a torchlit hallway carved into stone. A cart waited for them, buzzing happily on its tracks and Severus sighed as he clambered in. He despised the nauseating things. 

The cart whizzed through the passageways, much to Draco's enjoyment, judging by the gleam in his eyes, and Severus pressed himself into the corner of the cart, trying to think only of the feel of the cool air rushing across his skin, through his hair. 

It didn't work. 

His stomach lurched as the cart dropped down a nearly vertical hill and finally rolled to a gentle stop in front of a wooden door. 

It took Severus a moment to gather himself enough to climb from the cart, but when Draco looked back at him questioningly, a small smirk on that wretchedly pretty face, Severus scowled and hefted himself over the edge. 

He bloody _hated_ Gringotts.

The goblin turned the key in the door, and Severus pushed past Draco, stooping to enter the small room. 

It was there, a simple leather pouch on the stone floor, and Severus's hands trembled as he opened it. Roll upon roll of parchment, each filled with a familiar spiky script. Months of the old bastard's research, just as he had said there would be. 

"What is it?" Draco asked, looking over his shoulder, and Severus stuffed the parchment back into the pouch. 

"Notes," he said as his fingers hit something soft and warm and knitted. Socks. He pulled them out, the wide purple stripes garish even in the darkness of the chamber, and Severus choked back a painful laugh. 

_One can never have enough socks,_ Albus had said every Christmas, presenting Severus with yet another unwearable pair. The man had been utterly mad. Brilliantly, infuriatingly mad. 

Damn him and his wretched sense of humour to hell. 

"We need to leave," he said, standing and shoving the socks into his pocket. 

He didn't look at Draco. 

He couldn't.

\--------------------

The summons came just as they stepped out of a Muggle shop.

Severus had insisted they stop in Charing Cross to purchase appropriate clothing. After all, they were safer among the Muggles at the moment, and it'd not do to call attention to themselves. And so he had outfitted them in simple Muggle garments. Jeans and t-shirts for Draco, despite his complaints of looking ridiculously like Potter, as if that were ever a possibility, and black trousers and white shirts for himself, cut in the Muggle fashion rather than wizarding. 

He had paid with Muggle money, obtained at the Gringotts' exchange, and the colourful pound notes felt strange and yet familiar against his hand. He preferred the heavy clank of Galleons, preferred the cool carved surfaces of the coins to the crisp paper in his fist, far too light to be proper currency. 

And then they stepped into the bright late afternoon light of London, into the crowds and the cars and the shouts and horns of the city, and the pain hit them both, sharp and intense enough to cause Draco to cry out and grasp the Mark on his left forearm. 

Severus was familiar enough with the sharp burn and, as coming before His Lordship with Muggle items in hand would be one of the more foolish actions one might take, a quick, discreet flick of his wand changed their clothes back to appropriate black robes; another sent their packages to Leeds. He only hoped that the bags' sudden appearance in his cousin's foyer wouldn't send the idiot into a panic. 

The last damned thing he needed was for that pouch to be destroyed. 

His mother would recognise the notes, however, and would know what to do with them should he not return--Severus shook his head. That would not happen. He had extricated himself from far more dangerous places with His Lordship. He could do so now. 

He hoped. 

Draco was still blinking back tears when Severus grasped his elbow, Apparating them to the Dark Lord's presence. 

God help them both.

\--------------------

Draco had always hated Aunt Bella's house. It was dark and dim and smelled musty and old, unlike the Manor which had been filled with sunlight and flowers and the scent of beeswax and lemon oil for as long as he could recall.

The heavy crimson drapes in the parlour were drawn against the sun, and Draco shivered, fighting back the urge to reach for Snape's hand. He wasn't a child to be comforted, and he wouldn't let them see him cower, not any of the black-robed fools circling them, watching from behind white masks like cowards, even though he knew their names, knew each and every one of them and what they had done. 

Draco lifted his chin, defiantly. He was a Malfoy above all, and there was no one here his better. 

No one. 

The doors opened, and the Dark Lord entered, unmasked, his eyes glinting red in the dim firelight. Heads bowed--even Snape's, surprising Draco--and Snape jerked on Draco's robe until he dipped his head, blonde hair swinging into his eyes. 

He could feel His Lordship stop beside him, and when the cold, scaly fingers touched his throat, he didn't flinch, not even when sharp fingernails dug into his chin, pushing his head back. 

"You do recall what I promised if you failed, do you not?" His Lordship asked quietly, his breath warm on Draco's cheek, thumb stroking across the soft underside of Draco's jaw. 

"I tried," Draco said, throat tight. "I was there and--" 

"And Severus had to finish for you. Yes. Amycus and Alecto were quite eager to report your inability to kill an old man." The Dark Lord clucked and there was soft laughter behind him. "So many opportunities granted you, Draco, and yet you still _failed._ " 

The hand was gone then, and Draco bit his lip, waiting. Snape's fingers were still twisted in the sleeve of his robe, holding it tight, and Draco knew he should pull away, knew he should stand on his own, but the tense grip was as oddly comforting as it was threatening. 

"I've asked myself what I should do, you realise," the Dark Lord said, moving in front of Draco. His nostrils flared slightly, small, serpentine slits in a milk-white snout. "Fenrir has suggested I give you to him, of course—" 

"No," Snape said, and His Lordship looked sharply at him. Snape met his gaze. "I vowed to protect the boy." 

"So you did." The Dark Lord smiled, an unpleasant twist of his thin lips. "And I have taken that into account, Severus. Do believe me." He motioned to one of the black robes. "And so that leaves me with only one option." 

Draco's breath caught. 

Narcissa Malfoy was pushed into the circle, her usually impeccable hair unkempt, her eyes wild and bright. "Don't," she said, looking at His Lordship. "Please, not in front of him, _please--"_

The Dark Lord pulled her up against him, and his long fingers trailed lightly across her throat. "Your choice, young Malfoy. You or her." 

Draco stared at his mother. "Don't--" he whispered, and his voice cracked. "Please don't--" Everything stopped inside of him; he was floating. This couldn't be real. It was a dream, of course it was. He'd wake up in his dormitory at Hogwarts with Nott and Zabini sleeping across from him, and it would have all have been a nightmare. Just a nightmare. 

Snape's fingers brushed against his and Draco broke then, because it _was_ real. "Me," he said weakly, and he meant it, he knew he did, but it was too soft and His Lordship laughed at him--that cold, sharp, too-bright laugh--and then the others were laughing and his mother was looking at him and she was saying no, he could hear her, and he looked at His Lordship again and said it louder this time. "Me. Not her. Me." 

"Such a good son," the Dark Lord said and he pressed the tip of his wand to Draco's forehead. Draco refused to close his eyes, even though his breath was coming in sharp, short pants. "Pity." He flicked his wand towards Narcissa and a jet of blue-green light slammed into her forehead and Draco heard himself and Snape shouting as Narcissa fell to the floor. 

Draco was on his knees, her head in his lap; he smoothed her hair back from her forehead. Blood seeped from her open eyes, and she blinked slowly, blankly, her lashes smearing crimson across her pale skin. "She's alive," he murmured, and a tendril of hope sprouted until he looked at Snape, kneeling on her other side. 

"Better off dead," Snape said quietly, and he pulled Draco away. "Her mind is gone." 

Draco stared at his mother, curled on the dusty Axminster. She began to pluck at the flowers, woven into the silk, and blood dripped down her cheek, thick, red, sticky tears. "We can't leave her here--" 

"Oh, but you will." The Dark Lord slid the tip of his wand down Draco's cheek, pressing it gently against his throat. "You failed her, Mr Malfoy, and now she belongs to me." He smiled again, that horrid grimace that twisted Draco's stomach. "I promise I will take quite good care of her." 

Draco lunged forward, but Snape caught him, pulling him back as he struggled. "Stop it," he hissed into Draco's ear, and Draco shook his head wildly. 

"Get the brat out of my sight, Severus," His Lordship said, tapping his wand against Draco's temple. "He bores me." 

Draco sank to the floor, his eyes meeting his mother's blank blue stare, and just before the darkness slid over him, she smiled.

 

****

Chapter Three

The library of Number 12 Grimmauld Place was dark and somber, the twilight shadows stretching across the threadbare rug. Nymphadora Tonks sighed, and she flexed her bare toes against the worn wool. She was tired and she ached deep in her bones. Animagery was far more difficult than the simple, almost unthinking sliding of bone against flesh against skin to reshape her features into another.

Minerva had trained her well over the past year, however, and Tonks was slowly beginning to become adjusted to the odd strain on her body taking animal form caused. She sneezed softly. Really, she should do something about the mangy fur next time. 

"How's Harry?" she asked finally, not entirely certain she wanted the answer. 

"Quiet. Angry." Remus handed her a cup of tea, hot and black and far too strong--just the way she preferred it, and he sat on the arm of her chair, his fingers trailing lightly through her limp pink curls. 

"I worry about him." 

"He'll be all right, I think." Remus's hand stilled and Tonks leaned into the gentle pressure of his fingers against the nape of her neck. "It'll get worse as it goes on, you know. More deaths." His eyes held that dismal, haunted look that Tonks had learned to hate. 

"Again." Hogwarts' new headmistress stood at the fireplace, staring into the black-orange embers, her shoulders drawn and stooped. She sighed and looked over at Tonks. "You're certain they went to Yorkshire." 

Tonks nodded, her hands curling around the warm china. "Saw them myself in the alley, and then I had a bit of difficulty changing back to human before they Apparated. But I tracked them to the Dales until I lost them again." Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Snape's rather good at discombobulating Ministry tracking charms."

"He would be." Minerva's voice was flat. She sighed again. "Try the Dales once more tomorrow. Perhaps some Apparitional traces remain." 

Not bloody likely, Tonks thought, but she nodded. At least it gave her something to do, away from here and the grim task of planning the Headmaster's funeral--her throat tightened and her eyes burned. It still didn't seem possible. "I'll ask Kingsley to go with, shall I? Another wand wouldn't hurt, I'd think." 

"Of course." Minerva sounded distracted, tense. She rubbed her hands over her arms. Tonks wondered how much sleep Minerva'd gotten over the past two days. She suspected that it was significantly less than she'd managed and _that_ had only been a kip or two on the sofa when Remus forced her to. 

"You should go to bed," she said gently, setting her teacup aside, and Remus nodded. 

"She's right, Minerva. You look like you're about to fall over." 

Minerva frowned at them both over the rim of her spectacles, and Tonks was suddenly thirteen again and caught behind the statue of Lachlan the Lanky with Timothy Rookwood's hand up her shirt. And then Minerva's shoulders fell and there was the briefest moment of pain and fatigue bare on her lined face before the mask was in place again. "Perhaps I shall," she said with a brisk nod, and she was halfway to the door before she turned back again. 

"Nymphadora," she said, and the quiet cadence of her given name startled Tonks for a moment. "Orders remain the same if you find him, whatever Kingsley may say. Please." She hesitated for a moment. "There are things you don't yet know." 

Tonks met her gaze, direct and sober. "You're not going to say either, are you?"

"No." Minerva gave her a faint smile. "I'm not entirely certain I know them myself." 

Tonks stared at the door a full minute after it closed. "The whole world has gone mad, hasn't it?" 

"Probably." Remus took her teacup away. "I should check on her, I suppose. Make certain she actually goes to bed this time." 

Tonks leaned her head against the back of her chair, suddenly tired and too bloody old for all of it. "Yes." 

And then she was alone with only the memory of her cousin's tight, scared face pale in the streetlight. 

Christ, she hated this bloody war already.

\--------------------

Minerva sat at the open secretary, the well-read note smoothed out across the worn walnut desk, the boar-bristle hairbrush her mother had given her on her tenth birthday weighing down one corner. She'd read the note a hundred times, she was certain, since Aberforth had handed it to her that morning, his blue eyes somber above his scruffy beard.

 _Sometimes, Minerva,_ Albus had written in his familiar hand, _what seems to be the truth is, in fact, far from it. Protect them both, and tell no one._

Her fingers tightened on the paper, wrinkling it, and she stared out the window, pulling her sensible tartan dressing gown tighter around her shoulders. She despised London. The orange-yellow glow of the Muggle lights blocked the stars, and the city stank of people and machines. She longed for the cool, empty darkness of a Highland night, Albus sitting on the parapet beside her in companionable silence, his fingers stroking through her loose black hair. 

Ridiculous man. She refused to miss him. 

A knock at the door startled her, and Minerva tucked the note in her pocket and brushed the back of her hand across her eyes, turning in the chair just as the door creaked open. 

"Minerva?" Remus asked, and she waved him in. He watched her for a moment, and she stiffened, her defences falling into place as easily as ever. 

"Did you require something?" Her voice was a touch too brisk, perhaps too harsh, but she stood anyway, slipping on her spectacles. 

Remus closed the door behind him. "Why'd he do it?" He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, mussing it the way he had when he'd been a young, all-too-often frustrated prefect under her watch, and she didn't even have to ask to whom he referred. 

_Why? Because Albus asked, of course,_ she thought and she shook her head. "I wish I knew." Minerva wondered if Remus would make it through this war. They'd done this all before, and she was suddenly so tired. "Harry claims there was a Vow." 

"Harry." Remus murmured. "It's his time, then." 

"Yes." 

They stood there, silent, until Remus looked at her, and his eyes were shadowed and dull. 

"I'm bloody terrified," he whispered, and Minerva reached for him, without thought, and he pressed his face into her thin shoulder for the briefest moment before pulling away. 

"I should go back down," he said, and Minerva pretended not to notice the catch in his voice. "And you should sleep." 

She nodded and smiled faintly, and when he was gone, she leaned against the door, feeling old and exhausted and so very empty. 

"Albus, you daft old fool, I miss you," she whispered, sinking to the floor, her face buried against her knees, and for the first time since Hagrid had told her Albus was gone, Minerva cried.

\--------------------

"So, what you're trying to tell me is that you really _are_ trying to create the TARDIS."

Severus raised an eyebrow at his cousin's incredulous tone. "It _is_ possible." 

Richard set the Time-turner on the table, the chain pooling around it in a twist of gold. "That," he said pointing to the hourglass, "does not come close to resembling a police box. Besides, a TARDIS has to be grown, not made. Everyone knows that." 

"You do realise that the Doctor does not actually exist, yes?" Severus spread Albus's notes across the desktop, his stomach roiling at the nearly unintelligible scrawl he knew so well. It seemed surreal to be sitting here, in his Muggle cousin's study with the pages he'd last seen in Albus's office scattered before him, each line of equations, each notated explanation a stark reminder of the man whom he'd killed. 

There were moments when he despised Albus. 

Richard peered over his shoulder. "As I recall, you thought the Second Doctor appeared in your wardrobe." He picked up a sheet of parchment and frowned at it. 

"I was _seven,_ " Severus snapped. "And if you hadn't convinced me the Daleks were real--" 

"You were terribly gullible. And always running about shouting _bagsey my turn_ when everyone knew it bloody well wasn't or worse yet, having a monk on. It was damned annoying." Richard thrust the parchment in front of Severus. "This is a wormhole. You're creating a bloody _wormhole,_ Severus." 

Severus pushed his hand away with a sigh. "And?" 

"It's impossible." Richard stared down at the list of equations. "The amount of energy this would take to even begin to keep stable--it would take more than the sun would _ever_ be expected to produce in its lifetime. Not to mention the need for exotic matter, which is a problem in and of itself to produce in any useful form." 

Severus rolled his eyes. Muggles. 

Richard sat down next to him and reached for the quill before glaring at it and tossing it aside. He pulled a mechanical pencil from his shirt pocket and bent over the parchment, scribbling. "Thorne at Caltech's speculated that wormholes could be used for time travel, you know, and the numbers seem to indicate he's not entirely off his rocker, but then there's the question of vacuum polarisation of quantum fields--" 

"Of what?" Severus blinked and Richard sighed. 

"Vacuum polarisation," he said slowly, as if he was speaking to a dim child and Severus scowled at him. Imbecile. "It seems to indicate that the fields prevent time travel to the past. Or at least that's what Thorne postulates—" 

"Oh, for Christ's sake." Severus jerked the parchment away from him. "I can assure you that your sodding Thorne is a twonk." 

"If we actually manage this, do you realise what this does to current quantum theory?" Richard's eyes gleamed and he scrabbled for a blank scrap of parchment. "I have to write a paper--" 

Severus dug his fingers into Richard's wrist and his cousin yelped. "You'll do nothing of the sort," he said tightly. "This is _magic_ , Richard, not any of your ridiculous Muggle theories, and if I'm forced to Obliviate you, you can be damned certain I'll do so, and take more of your precious brain cells than necessary." 

They glared at each other and Richard finally sighed, his shoulders sagging. He pulled a pack of cigs from his pocket and tapped one out into his hand. He lit it and exhaled in a small puff. "Fine. But if UNIT shows up on my doorstep--" 

"They won't," Severus said dryly, handing his cousin a sheaf of papers. Richard's face fell, and Severus felt a twinge of pity. 

The door swung open, and Eileen padded in, her slippers scuffing softly against the wood floor, her face twisted in worry. "He's awake," she said, resting her hand on her son's shoulder. "He's asking for you." 

Severus was already out of his chair, and he didn't intend to think of what that might mean. "Have you told him?" 

Eileen shook her head as she handed him the Prophet, and Severus flinched at the headline. No matter how many times he read it, it still hurt. "I thought perhaps it was better to hear from someone who knew him better." 

"Yes, of course." Severus's hand shook as he reached for Richard's cigarettes, and the cellophane was slick and warm against his fingers. "I'll return. Keep working." 

"Can I at least have a K-9?" Richard mumbled past the pencil in his teeth. He stared down at the parchments spread across his desk, his fingertip tracing across the lines of numerals. 

"No," Eileen said, and she sat down next to her nephew. "Ridiculous-looking creature. What exactly is this?" 

Severus closed the door on Richard's eager explanation.

\--------------------

The bedroom drapes were drawn against the afternoon sunlight.

Draco was curled in the bed, face pressed against the pillow, and his breath was sharp and shallow, the only indication of his pain. He winced when Severus sat on the edge of the mattress, but his face smoothed over quickly. 

Malfoys were never to show weakness, Severus knew full well. 

A moment passed and then Draco sighed. "Your mother says I've been asleep two days."

"Yes." Severus studied the boy as he took a drag on his cigarette. Dark circles bruised Draco's eyes, and his skin was paler than usual. His bottom lip was dry and scraped, as if he'd been biting it for hours, whether from pain or emotional distress, Severus was not certain. "I gave you a potion." 

"Mother?" Draco asked it softly, hesitantly. 

"Your aunt has her." Severus looked away. Bellatrix had been careful with her sister, kneeling beside her and wiping the blood from her face as she spoke quietly to Narcissa, calming her. His Lordship had looked on, amused, before he'd ordered Greyback to remove them both from the room, and Bella had drawn her wand on the wolf at his first touch. 

Greyback had never had a chance. 

His Lordship quite frequently forgot the power of blood, Severus thought. Those ties were a deeper magic, even when hidden behind years of anger and bitterness and jealousy, and yes, even madness. 

Severus set the Prophet on the bed. Lucius looked up at them, his face gaunt yet still arrogant. "Your father--" 

"How'd he do it?" Draco pushed the paper off the bed. It hit the floor with a rustle of pages. "Just tell me."

"A hex gone wrong. One of the guards. The Ministry says it was an accident." 

"Of course they would. It is, for them." Draco sat up, wincing, and he pulled his knees to his chest. "He told me what he'd do if I failed." 

Severus handed him the cigarette, and Draco held it to his mouth, his hand shaking slightly. Ash fell on the bedspread. "Do you want him to pay?" Severus asked finally, not looking at Draco. 

Draco exhaled slowly, and the smoke drifted between them for a moment. "Yes," he said, his voice soft and steady, and Severus nodded.

The boy was ready for the truth.

"Have you ever heard of a horcrux?" he asked and at Draco's curious look he stood up. "Get dressed and come downstairs and I'll explain." 

Draco reached for his trousers.

\--------------------

They had discovered the connection after Albus had retrieved Riddle's ring. The curse had been the first indication; Severus had known from the first time he'd seen Albus's blackened hand that the magic slowly seeping into Albus's body, poisoning him, was a level of Dark Arts he'd never experienced. It had taken weeks for him to pinpoint the exact cause.

Soul transference. 

They'd done what they could to slow its progress, as long as they could, and Severus had been surprised that Albus had resisted all those months, but the end result had been set the moment the curse took effect. Albus had chosen death over losing himself, and Severus had understood. 

Albus had thrown himself into research, culling through his memories of Riddle, sharing those he deemed appropriate with Potter. And there, hidden in the layers of remembrances, he had found the first threads to the puzzle, ones that had eventually led him through the past. 

It was old, this soul that twisted on the edges of Albus's perception, ancient and Dark, and it had been feeding off wizards and witches throughout the centuries--those willing to host it and those taken by surprise. 

Only a few weeks past, Albus had shown him the research, the carefully detailed notes, as complex as a genealogy, and he'd watched Severus carefully over the rim of his teacup as the understanding struck. Many of the names were familiar. Calilgua, Judas Iscariot, Salazar Slytherin, Vlad Tepes, Elizabeth Bathory, William Burke, William Hare, Grigori Rasputin, Grindelwald. 

"Perhaps it should be comforting that so much of mankind's greatest evil comes from the same source," Albus had said, and Severus had merely looked at him. 

"Explain this," he had said, and he pointed to a branch in the line, at Burke and Hare, one which closed at Grindelwald, returning to a solitary line until branching off again into a seven smaller lines, four labeled not with names, but with objects, the rest blank. Those he understood; he and Albus had discussed the possibilities of His Lordship's horcruxes. 

Albus had nodded and set his teacup aside, his blue eyes solemn over his half-moon spectacles. "Yes, I thought you might find that as interesting as I did." He leaned over the desk, his beard brushing across the curled edges of the parchment. "The soul's first attempt at a horcrux, I believe, human in form. It split itself, entering two bodies, murderous colleagues actually, in an attempt to prolong its existence. However, it discovered soon enough that existence in separate human forms weakened it." 

"And Grindelwald--" Severus frowned down at the two converging lines. 

"Deliberately reunited both halves of the soul." Albus sighed and leaned back in his chair. "And that, Severus, is what we must stop. The only way to defeat Tom Riddle is to weaken him before the soul has even touched him." 

"Surely you can't mean--" 

Albus had rested his hand on Severus', blackened and cracked skin rough against Severus's wrist. "I can't go back," he said, and suddenly he had looked tired and worn. "The amount of magic it would take--" He had sighed and turned his hand over, staring down at the scarred palm. "I'm an old man, Severus, and fighting this beast has drained me. Collecting the memories for young Harry has been difficult enough. It won't be long now before you'll be required--" 

"Don't even say it," Severus had snapped, and Albus had given him that gentle, steadfast look. 

He had set a key in front of Severus, an old, battered iron skeleton. "When the time comes, go to Gringotts. Everything I've shown you today will be in a private vault. You'll know what to do with it, Severus. Trust me." 

Severus laid the key on the kitchen table next to the parchment, his eyes fixed on Draco. He could feel the boy's confusion, sense the tumult of his thoughts, even past the simple Occlumens Draco had kept in place for the past six months. "You saw what was in the vault." 

"And you want me to help with this?" Draco touched the key lightly, his face blank. 

"Albus discovered that the most opportune moment would be the seventeenth of December, 1916." Severus shifted in his chair. "We go back in time, we collect the soul at death, before Grindelwald is able to do so. Albus estimated a three-hour window in which the soul is viable--" 

"And it's destroyed how?" Draco gave him a baleful look. "A Dementor that we tuck in our back pockets?" 

Severus set a small black box on the table. Its lid was painted with enameled runes, across the top and around the lip. "A _sjel felle_ \--a soul trap. A horcrux of sorts, if you will. One that will be destroyed." 

"That will weaken him?" Draco picked up the box and hefted it in his hand. He looked up at Severus. "Why are you trusting me with this? I could go to him, turn you in--" 

"You won't," Severus said quietly and he felt Draco's unease twist through his mind. "Because you want vengeance on him, and I'm offering you the chance." He leaned forward. "Only Potter can destroy him, Draco, but if we don't do this, he'll remain too powerful, no matter how many bloody horcruxes Potter discovers. He's only put small parts of himself in them. Minute elements, each important, but none as important as the core that resides inside of that body he's recreated. And if we cripple that core--" 

"We change history." 

Severus shook his head. "Only slightly. Grindelwald will still rise to power, but he'll be weaker. Tom Riddle will still become the Dark Lord, but his abilities will be lessened. Only half the soul will exist." 

"And my parents?" Draco set the box on the table again.

"Will still require vengeance." Severus hesitated. "As will my mother." 

Draco looked at him sharply. 

"The illness she has was contracted during the last war." Severus stared down at the parchment on the table and scraped a thumbnail across the letters of Tom Riddle's name. Black ink flecked off on his skin. "It was a potion that His Lordship forced upon her when he was displeased with me. Her Healer and I have managed to make it less painful, but it can't be stopped. Each year it eats more at her body and her magic." He looked up at Draco. "Save for Dicky, who barely counts, she's the only family I have left."

There was a long silence, broken only by the soft ticking of the clock hanging next to the door. 

"Where exactly in 1916 are we going?" Draco asked finally. "Because, really, I suppose I should have proper clothing." 

Severus smiled faintly. "St Petersburg. I do hope your warming charms are up to snuff."

** Chapter Four **

The last time Andromeda Tonks had spoken to either of her sisters, her daughter had been in nappies and her husband had been appallingly obsessed with Pink Floyd. Not that Ted didn't still play _Dark Side of the Moon_ at outrageous decibel levels when he'd had a pint or two too many, but at least he could be convinced to confine himself to his study, muting charms in place.

Now she stood in the parlour of her small Islington house, watching Narcissa trail her fingers across the keyboard of the upright piano in the corner, her eyes blank and dull. 

"I can't look after her," Bella said tightly, and she pulled her robe closer about her shoulders as if to protect herself from her sister's presence. 

"Can't or won't?" Andromeda took Narcissa's hand, leading her back to the chintz-covered sofa. 

Narcissa sat with a sigh, and she tucked her feet up beneath her the way she had when they were little. 

Bella hesitated for barely a moment. "I have duties--" she began with that particular haughty tone that had always set her sister's teeth on edge. 

"And with one Floo call I could have the entire MLE here. I'm rather certain Alastor would be pleased to have you in a holding cell." Andromeda smoothed her palm over Narcissa's pale hair, and her younger sister leaned into the touch, curling against the arm of the sofa. 

It was enough to make up Andromeda's mind. 

Bella's mouth tightened. "Don't think I'd let you anywhere near that hearth." 

"Get out," Andromeda said, tiredly. "Now, Bella, or I'll take my chances with your wand. I was Dueling Club champion, after all." 

The door slammed behind her older sister, and Andromeda sat down next to Narcissa, pulling her close. Narcissa leaned her head on Andromeda's shoulder, and her hair spilled over her dark grey robe, long waves of soft, pale gold, and she looked so very young as she twisted a thin gold chain through her fingers. An oval locket hung from it, bobbing gently against her wrist until Andromeda caught it and pressed the latch. 

Tiny miniatures of Lucius and Draco eyed her suspiciously, and Andromeda was shocked at the resemblance between her sister and her nephew. She hadn't seen him in twelve years, and that last time had been across Diagon Alley at Christmas. Draco had been dragging a toy dragon behind him, its wings flapping against snowbanks and robes, and he'd ordered the following elf about as imperiously as his father might. 

Nymphadora had been a first-year, just back home for hols, and had been less than impressed with her cousin. 

"He looks like you," Andromeda said quietly, wondering what the boy was like now. She'd heard bits and pieces of course, mostly from Nymphadora, relaying fragments of stories the Weasleys or young Harry had told her. Not necessarily an unbiased view, she was certain. 

Narcissa pulled the locket away, her eyes suddenly bright, and she fumbled with the tiny clasp, trying to fasten it around her neck until Andromeda helped her, lifting her hair. Narcissa gave her a small half-smile and her fingers curled around the small oval, thumb stroking across the side. 

Andromeda's heart caught. What would she do without Ted and Nymphadora? And with Nymphadora in the thick of the Order's preparations-- 

"Oh, Cissy," she murmured, "why do we have to go through this again?" 

Narcissa shook her head and turned her face into her sister's shoulder.

\--------------------

"What I want to know is, is it going to work?" Severus snapped, letting the chain of the Time-turner slip through his fingers. Draco had fallen asleep on the desk corner, his face buried in the crook of his elbow, a piece of parchment stuck to his cheek. Severus plucked it off and tossed it onto the blotter alongside the Muggle histories and biographies he'd spent the day combing through. One should know one's prey, after all.

He should wake the boy; there was still work to be done, but it was late and Severus could remember his numb exhaustion the night of his own father's death. 

Richard glared at him. "How the bloody hell am I to know? I've never created a wormhole before. Or done magic, for that matter. All I can tell you is that the maths you gave me to look over seem to match." 

"It'll work," Eileen said quietly, her eyes on Severus. India ink was smeared across her cheek, and tiny droplets stained her fingers where her quill had rested. "It's merely an amplified version of the Time-turner Charm based on years rather than hours with a combined portkey and Apparition base. Albus left excellent notes. For the most part." 

"Yes. Whatever. The only difficulty," Richard added, "is making adjustments for the Julian calendar. Russia didn't adopt the Gregorian until January 1918." 

"Which means?" Severus pinched the bridge of his nose. He was beginning to feel the start of a very irritating headache. 

Richard sighed in annoyance. "Really, Severus, do I have to connect the dots for you? There's a two weeks difference in the calendars between our time and 1916. So the likelihood of you actually arriving on the sixteenth--" He shrugged and shifted nervously from one foot to another. "I can't guarantee it. It is possible to overshoot the mark, which really wouldn't be terribly bad as you could just wait it out a bit. But to undershoot it would be problematic." 

"With two of you using it, the adapted portkey could be drained by another jump," Eileen said, handing Severus a sheaf of calculations, "thus cutting off any possibility of return." 

"Yes, well, that's a concern too." Richard sat next to Severus, letting out a heavy sigh. "We don't know exactly how that might work. This isn't an exact science, and it's not like anyone's managed to travel back this far, even your lot, it seems. We're talking a great deal of energy being expended here to move through the space-time continuum, magic or not." He chewed at a fingernail and stared down at the rows of equations filling the parchment on the desk. 

There was a long silence, and Severus felt the weight of Albus's request press down upon him again, heavy and stifling. "I see." 

"You don't have to do this," Eileen said, and Severus met her dark gaze. 

"Someone has to," he said, and he gathered the papers together and stood. "I'd prefer to get it over with." He looked back at his mother. "I've a pound of flesh to collect." 

"Severus," she said softly, and he shook his head. 

"Don't." 

Her fingers were warm against his, and she squeezed his hand once before pulling away.

\--------------------

It was nearly half four in the afternoon before they were ready to go.

They each had a valise packed with a transfigured wardrobe from the Muggle clothes they'd bought earlier--cottons and denims converted to heavy wools and thick furs and tailored to the fashions of the times according to the costuming books Richard had nicked from the University of Leeds library. Eileen had spent three hours that morning making certain they matched the colour plates, and at one point she'd smiled at Draco's fascination with the Muggle cravats and trousers. 

"Be grateful you've no need for a bustle," she'd said, and then laughed and shown an appalled Draco exactly what one was. 

But now he and Snape were dressed in grey flannel trousers and coats, their wands tucked away in their pockets, and Draco was sweltering under his heavy wool overcoat and fur hat. He tugged at the collar, only half-listening to the conversation at the other end of the room. 

Draco was nervous, strangely so, and excited, the way he had been the first time Mother and Father had taken him to the Continent as a child instead of leaving him for a week with the elves. He slipped his hand into the pocket of the queer Muggle jacket, his fingers brushing his mother's portkey which he'd tucked in there earlier. It was all he had of either of them now.

Nott's owl had arrived at breakfast, addressed to a Hyperion Tuttle and filled with dull nattering about gardening and the terrible state of a Beatrice Grimwick's roses, until Snape had dropped a solitary drop of black-red potion on the parchment, shattering the imperceptible wards. 

The Ministry had taken the Manor, Nott wrote, and Aunt Bella had left Mother with Aunt Andromeda for the time being--and Draco knew that somewhere in her addled mind his mother must _hate_ that, being in a house with a Muggleborn, but at least she was safe and away from His Lordship. 

And when he returned, he'd take her some place else, some place warm and safe and bright. Majorca perhaps, or one of the Greek isles. A small one, with a villa on the sand, and the elves could serve them tea as they looked out over the water. 

"We should go," Snape said over his shoulder, and Draco nodded, picking up his valise. Eileen kissed both their cheeks--Draco didn't even flinch--and her eyes were bright when she stepped back. 

"The blood potions you wanted for the boy." She handed Snape a small leather bag and Draco could hear the clink of potions phials inside. He gave Snape a curious look. 

"What boy?"

Snape ignored Draco, instead draping the chain of the Time-turner around both their necks. Draco had never stood this close to his Head of House; he smelled of spices and wool and something sharp and bitter that Draco couldn't place. 

"You should hold onto my arm," Snape said, his breath warm against Draco's cheek. "The last thing I need is to have to track you across space and time because you were fool enough to lose your way." 

Draco dug his fingers a bit too roughly into Snape's overcoat and the professor gave him a sharp look before glancing back at his cousin. "Watch after her."

"I will." Richard put his hand on Eileen's shoulder. "Go on then, and good luck with you." He looked slightly wistful. 

"Be careful," Eileen said, and she gave Snape a pointed frown. He snorted and rolled his eyes.

Draco could feel the slight tremble in Snape's arm as he flipped the Time-turner--once for each decade, then a full twist of the top knob for the last year. 

Wind rushed past his face, and the sitting room of the Leeds house faded away into a wash of colour. He clung to Snape, and his professor's other arm wrapped around him, his valise banging against Draco's hip. They tumbled through a swirl of colour, and he could almost make out faces blurring past them, and houses, trees, lights---and then with a sharp crack, the world splintered around them, falling in shards like broken glass. They landed sprawled on a snow-covered street, and Draco looked up to see a pair of sharp hooves flailing inches from his face. 

He was jerked out of the way with a painful tug on his legs, and the cart passed by, the driver shouting something at him that he couldn't understand. He sat up slowly. Snape was next to him, breathing hard. 

"Are you all right?" Snape asked, and Draco nodded, wincing as he climbed to his feet. He rubbed his aching hip. 

"Where are we?" he asked, looking around. The street was narrow and cobblestone beneath a layer of dirty-grey snow, and it was filled with horses and carts and pedestrians and bicycles and even a few strange, boxy Muggle automobiles chugging along, trails of black-grey smoke curling from their pipes. An arched bridge crossed a wide river, crusted over with ice. Muggle children were playing beneath the bridge, knocking a small black shell to one another with oddly bent sticks and laughing loudly, chattering in that strange, guttural language again. 

Snape nodded towards a spired gold dome rising over the bare tree branches. "St Isaac's Cathedral, I believe. Which would make this most certainly St Petersburg. Or Petrograd, rather." At Draco's curious glance, he shrugged. "It seems during the Muggle war, St Petersburg was seen as too German of a name." He grabbed the arm of a scrap of a boy dressed in a ragged wool coat and mangy fur cap, skates tossed haphazardly over his shoulder, and he snapped something at him that caused the boy to give them both a curious look before he replied. 

"We're early," Snape said grimly, letting the boy dash off. "It's December 2." 

"Which means?" Draco pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. It was cold, bitterly so, and snow was beginning to drift from the grey sky. 

Snape gave him a baleful look. "It means exactly what you think it might mean, Mr Malfoy." 

"Why can't we just go ahead and kill the bastard?" Draco asked, annoyed. It seemed a reasonable thought to him; after all, that was their purpose and the sooner it was accomplished, the sooner they could return home. 

"Because, you twit, we're not here to cause historical change." Snape led him past a long queue of women, huddled against the snow in their heavy coats and thick scarves, waiting their turn to enter the tiny bakery on the corner. "We're here merely to collect a soul. And that is _all._ " 

Snape pulled Draco back into the shadow of a doorway and tapped his ear lightly with his wand. The bizarre shouts and conversations around them slowly evened into a familiar cadence, and Draco began to understand the words spoken in thick accents. 

"Translation charm," Snape said at Draco's curious look, and he tucked his wand back into his pocket as they started down the pavement. "It works both ways, should you wish. You've just to think _Russian_ before you speak." 

"Gde nakhoditsya Grigori Efimovich?" Draco said, and he laughed as the unfamiliar words shaped themselves in his mind. 

"64 Gorokhovaia Ulitsa," Snape said. "He lives there with his two daughters, Maria and Varvara; however, the Okhranka watches over his flat." 

"The Okhranka?" Draco stumbled over a broken kerb and caught Snape's arm. It was firm and warm beneath his fingers and he pulled away quickly, oddly embarrassed by his clumsiness. He tightened his fingers on the handle of his valise. 

Snape stepped through a snowdrift, his boots crunching against the ice. Snow sparkled in his hair, glinting in the faint gaslights that were being lit along the street. "The tsar's secret police." He snorted. "The Russians have always been fond of their intrigues. I would prefer to avoid the fools as much as possible for obvious reasons." 

"So how are we to follow him?" Draco's boot slid on a slick patch, and Snape caught him before he stumbled again. His professor's hand pressed against his hip for just a moment, and Draco flushed. 

Snape pursed his mouth. "That I have yet to determine. First, however, I suggest we find a place to sleep. And then food." He paused in front of a small hotel, slightly shabby. Mother would be horrified, Draco thought, taking in the peeling paint on the green door, and the gaudy gold lettering on the sign set into the stone wall. 

"How do you plan on paying?" Draco whispered, suddenly struck by the fact that they were 80 years in the past and he sincerely doubted their Galleons would be useful even in a wizarding establishment. 

With an amused quirk of his eyebrow, Snape pulled a handful of Knuts from his pocket and with a tap of his wand, they transfigured into a stack of rubles. "By the time the charm wears off, we'll be gone." 

Draco laughed then, and Snape smiled, a quick, small twist of his mouth, but Draco was startled by it. He could count on both hands the number of times he'd seen his Head of House genuinely smile over the years and he was struck by how young Snape looked at the moment. 

The door opened with a burst of warm air and bright chatter from a group of what appeared to be nurses clad in grey wool and spotless pinafores adorned with a crimson cross, their dark hair covered by white veils, and on the heels of an argument about proper bandaging techniques, Snape pushed him into the dark lobby. 

 

****

Chapter Five

The room was bitterly cold in the morning, the warming charms having worn off over the course of the night, and Draco had learned in the past four days to cast them again at least a quarter hour before he'd be forced out of bed.

He could hear Snape moving about in the adjoining room, and he knew it'd only be moments before the door was thrown open and he was glared at and informed that it was past time for his wretched arse to be up. 

His toe poked out from beneath the blankets, and he shivered, burrowing deeper into the bed. It would be another day of wandering Gorokhovaia Ulitsa, he supposed, with Snape's infuriating insistence that they learn all that they could about their quarry's habits beforehand, although all they'd managed to discover so far was that Rasputin seemed to be fond of drinking and whoring his way through the days and nights and that the Okhranka schedule was rather rigidly run, with each man showing up promptly on time--neither too early or too late--to take his shift across the street from the flat. 

The idea of doing this for another ten days horrified Draco. He was quite certain he'd hex himself out of sheer boredom. 

Once the dull monotony had been broken by the appearance of one of Rasputin's daughters, the eldest, Maria, Snape had speculated, a pretty enough girl with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a plain black dress, a basket on her arm. She was not much older than Draco, Snape had told him, and Draco had watched her curiously as she made her way down the street, eyes fixed on the sidewalk, ignoring the sideways glances of the men and women walking past. 

She had turned her head at the corner, and their eyes met for the briefest moment until she looked away again. "She's frightened," Draco had said quietly and Snape had nodded. 

"There's already been one direct attempt on her father's life," Snape'd said, pulling a bit of bread from the black loaf he'd tucked in his pocket earlier. "And rumours of other assassination plots swirling about." He chewed slowly, watching the girl turn the corner, and he brushed crumbs absently off his black coat. "Supposedly she loved the bastard." 

"He's her father." Draco had understood immediately. There were things that could always be forgiven, would always be, just by the very nature of that tie. No matter how you might resent what he had done and how it had destroyed everyone he once loved. 

Draco curled into the blankets, miserable. They'd never allowed him to see Father, all those months he was imprisoned. He'd been confined alone, with barely any company, not even the other prisoners, and each request he and Mother had made to see him had been denied with grim pleasure by the Ministry. 

And now he'd never see him again. He'd never see that tight, proud smile directed towards him over some small accomplishment that had pleased Father, never squirm at the warm glances his parents exchanged over their wineglasses at dinner, never curl up on the chaise in Mother's sitting room the morning after one of the London parties, half-listening to her rattle on about the latest society gossip as he flipped through Which Broomstick and Father read the Prophet over tea.

His father was dead, and his mother barely more than an empty shell.

And it was entirely _his_ fault.

Draco pressed his face into his pillow, blinking hard against the hot burn of tears. He was alone now, the last Malfoy, disgraced and a fugitive, lost in time with _Snape_ of all people and he hated it. 

He missed the Manor, and the elves, and the way he'd be woken for breakfast with a pot of Darjeeling and a plate of eggs and toast and jam and fat, sizzling sausages cooked just the way he preferred. 

And Mother would come into his room, and they'd discuss plans for the day, shopping perhaps, or a trip to the Continent while Father worked over the Manor ledgers or slept in after an evening spent gaming with Avery and Nott. 

It wasn't fair, he thought. None of it was fair. 

The door opened then, and he heard the clump of Snape's boots across the worn floorboards. 

"Get up," Snape began, voice tight with annoyance, and then he stopped, his hand on the blanket pulled high over Draco's shoulder. There was a moment's silence, and Draco rubbed his wet face against the rough pillowcase, his cheeks flaming. 

The mattress dipped as Snape sat next to him, and his fingers were heavy on Draco's arm. 

"Your parents?" he asked finally, and Draco shrugged, letting his hair fall into his eyes. 

Snape nodded and he sighed, staring into the corner of the still-dark room. The barest traces of morning light filtered through the snow-streaked windowpanes. "It becomes easier," he said. "In its own way." 

"I suppose." Draco stared up at the ceiling. "It doesn't feel like it right now." 

"It won't." Snape shifted, and the bed creaked and bumped against the wall. "Andromeda will watch after her, you realise." 

"Mother will hate it." Draco turned his head then, and looked at Snape. He didn't want to ask, but he had to know. "Do you think any of her is still left there inside?" 

Snape didn't say anything; he didn't need to and Draco pressed his lips together tightly. He'd thought that as well. Having it confirmed though was painful. 

He sat up and the cold air prickled against his skin. "We should go."

\--------------------

Tonks had never cared for Privet Drive and its long rows of identical houses and carefully tended postage-stamp yards. It gave her the collywobbles.

Her Cleansweep hovered next to the second floor window, and she hoped the Disillusionment Charm she had tossed on quickly before leaving the Ministry was holding fast. 

She rapped on the windowpane, and the sash flew open and Hedwig's cage was thrust at her. "Hullo to you too, Harry," she said wryly, hooking the cage on the end of her broom. Hedwig hooted softly and ruffled her wings in greeting. "And to you, dear," Tonks added with a smile. 

Harry climbed out of the window, broom in hand. "I'm just ready to get out of here," he muttered, and he slid easily onto his Firebolt. Tonks was always amazed at his grace on a broomstick; Remus would laugh at her and tell her she should have seen James handle a broom. 

"You all right?" she asked finally, when they'd left Privet Drive far behind, and Harry shrugged and ducked his head in that way he had that meant _no, but don't ask._

Tonks never had been any good at not asking. 

She dipped her broom closer to his and reached out and ruffled his hair. "You certain you want to do this?" 

"Not much of a choice is there?" Harry's hands tightened around the broomstick, his knuckles whitening for a moment. "Someone has to." 

He was right; Tonks knew that, but it didn't seem fair to ask him to step into Dumbledore's shoes, to take on such a harsh responsibility, a fact which she'd argued with Minerva the night before. "He's only seventeen," she'd protested. 

Minerva'd looked at her, tired and worn, and had laid a wrinkled hand over hers. 

"He has every right to request this," she'd said finally. "He's the only one who can fulfill the prophecy; you know that, and I can think of no one better to follow Albus." 

And so she was here, escorting the new leader of the Order back to Grimmauld Place. 

Tonks glanced over at Harry. His face was drawn and pale, and his eyes were dull, the way they'd been the summer after Sirius had fallen through the Veil. He hadn't been eating, that she was certain of, judging by the angular gauntness of his jaw, and that worried her. 

Still, he was determined, and she recognised the stubborn glint in his eyes. He'd be a good leader, she knew. He had the spirit for it, and after two years surrounded by Aurors, competent and incompetent, she knew the rarity of that ability. 

With a sigh, she touched his hand gently and turned her broom towards London.

\--------------------

Severus was tired of this damned frozen bench hidden behind this damned snow-laden bush. There had to be a better way to do this, he thought in irritation, than sitting here watching the deliveries of wine and vodka arrive, occasionally carried by a whore or two.

Somehow they had to find a way to get closer, without suspicion, but the chances of either of them being easily granted admission to the tsar and tsaritsa was highly unlikely, and any direct contact with Rasputin raised the Okhranka's interest. The last thing Severus wished was to be forced to dodge those imbeciles as well. 

Draco had fallen asleep an hour past, and his head was on Severus's shoulder, his hair sweeping out beneath his ushanka. The silver fox hat suited him, Severus thought, and his lashes were dark against his pale cheek, his mouth pink and soft. 

Severus had known he was attracted to the boy. It was a fact he found disturbing. He'd never been one to be drawn to children, even the older students, although he knew that it was not an unheard of happenstance even at Hogwarts. More than one professor had been sent away in shame over the past thousand years. 

Draco, however, had been the one student who had tempted him. Innocently, of course; Severus had no false hope that the boy would respond to any advance that he might make. Still. 

It must be admitted he was quite lovely. 

Severus shifted, pulled away, and Draco woke, blinking up at him sleepily. 

"It's cold," Severus said, standing--anything to put distance between Draco and himself--and he rubbed his elbows, palms hidden beneath heavy knitted gloves imbued with warming charms. 

Draco stretched, and Severus glanced away. "It's always cold," the boy said, but he looked up at Severus with bright eyes. "Back to the hotel then?" 

"Not yet." Severus started down the pavement, and Draco hurried to catch up. "Dinner, I think. Someplace pleasant." 

Draco looked hopeful. "Not another one of those horrid cafes?" They boy hated the dirty little bistros tucked into alleyways and side streets that served nothing but black bread and borscht and goulash and potatoes washed down with bitter vodka and the occasional beer and for once Severus concurred. 

"I think the Hotel d'Europe tonight," he said and Draco's face brightened. Really, all things considered, the boy was remarkably simple to placate. If one knew his weaknesses.

The hotel on Nevsky Prospekt was four storeys, classic Neo-Baroque architecture conceived in 1830 by Carlo Rossi who had been charged with uniting the previous Hotel Cuolon with existing houses on either side. 

Forty-five years later Fyodor Lidval had redesigned the interior, turning it into a haven of Art Noveau décor, and the admiration on Draco's face as they wandered through the wide, spacious lobby indicated to Severus, who had almost no appreciation of aesthetics, that Lidval had indeed done well. 

L'Europe was filled, so they waited at the bar for an opening, and Severus was struck again by the odd cosmopolitan flair of the city when the black bartender revealed he was originally from the States--some strange place he called Kentucky. Languages rolled around them, French from the flirtatious actresses installed at the Theatre Michel, English from the British so noticeable in their Harris tweed purchased from Druce's, Italian from the bankers with mustaches, nursing their wine quietly in the corner. 

Not surprising, he supposed. The tsaritsa herself was a thoroughly British German princess raised at her grandmother's palace in Kennsington, and the tsar's cousins were scattered across the Continent in every capital city. 

The elegance of the restaurant, when they were finally seated with the assistance of a mild bit of Imperius, was an odd contrast to the streets outside, dirty and grimy and filled with the poor, hungry for bread and tired of the German war raging in the background, trains bringing in wounded troops from the front daily. 

Severus remembered little from his early days at Muggle school, but he recalled the stories of the Great War that his grandfather would tell him, a pint in hand, and his cane nearby, stories of battles and skirmishes and Kaiser Wilhelm's foolishness. 

The war had turned unpopular in Russia, and discontented, the people had muttered for change, giving the Bolsheviks an opportunity to step forward. 

Severus looked around as the waiter poured wine for them, blood-red in graceful crystal glasses rimmed with gold, and he wondered how many in this room would survive the coming Revolution, pitting tsarist against socialist, and of those, how many would last through the purges of the following years as the revolutionaries fought amongst themselves to establish their power.

It was a sobering thought. 

Draco watched him over the rim of his wineglass. "You're frowning," he said. "That never bodes well." 

"Merely thinking," Severus said, "about the future and what it holds for those in this room." 

Draco shivered slightly. "Morbid thought." He set his wineglass aside and propped his chin on his fist. "What does happen to them?" 

"They die." Severus pleated his wide linen napkin between his fingertips. "There's a struggle between the Red Army and the White, and the Bolsheviks win. A new order is established, and in time those who disagree..." He trailed off and sighed. "It's not entirely different from what will happen if His Lordship is successful." 

"Why did you turn?" Draco asked after a moment. He twisted the stem of his wineglass, turning it slowly, staring at the red wine sloshing up the curve of the bowl. 

Severus didn't answer for a moment. "At first I believed him. I was young and incredibly foolish--" 

"Rather like me," Draco muttered. 

"Perhaps, yes." Severus tilted his head to one side, considering. "More so, I'd say. I was not..." He hesitated, searching for the word. "...fond of my father, and I despised his bloodline for that reason. It humiliated me." 

"But your cousin--" Draco bit his lip. "You seemed to like him, even if he is a Muggle." 

Severus sipped his wine. It was rich and heavy on his tongue, sharp and woody. "Richard was an anomaly. He was the only one I could tolerate outside of my grandfather." He ran his thumb over the rim of the wineglass, pressing the curve into his skin. "The rest of them were mad." 

"So you went to the Dark Lord. As a half-blood." Draco gave him a sceptical look. "And he took you in." 

A shrug. It had been that simple, really. "No one asked and I never told. It was enough at that point that I despised Muggles and that I had your father's support." 

Draco glanced away, and Severus understood the brief tightness of his mouth. He missed Lucius too, in his own way. He always would. For all his faults--and there were many--he had been Severus's only friend for many years. 

"Why'd you change your mind?" Draco's hand went to his own left arm, and Severus knew he was thinking of the Mark, could feel it there, lying uneasily across his skin, waiting for the burn of the summons. 

It wasn't something you ever became used to. 

"My mother," Severus said, and he reached for his wineglass. "I couldn't have her used to punish me." 

Draco nodded, and he shifted in his chair. He was young, too young, but his eyes were old and tired and Severus recognised the weariness. 

The waiter brushed past, seating two gentlemen at the table next to them, joining another three, and Severus drained his glass, then poured another. He was vaguely aware of introductions being made, but he turned his head in surprise when he heard the name Sydney Gibbes, and Draco leaned forward. 

"What is it?" he murmured, but Severus shook his head, quieting him, as he studied the men next to them, laughing and conversing in an odd mix of Russian and English. 

Gibbes. Charles Sydney Gibbes, and he saw him then, a dark-haired Englishman with a receding chin, son of a Rotherham banker and graduate of St John's, Cambridge. And since 1908, English tutor to the Grand Duchesses and the tsarevich. 

Severus nearly laughed at this unexpected stroke of luck. Instead he gave Draco a small, tight smile. "I think perhaps," he said softly, "we may have just been given entrance to Tsarskoye Selo." 

 

****

Chapter Six

It had been simple enough in the end. A whispered Pulmobruo Hex, directed towards Gibbes with the barest flick of a wand beneath the table, and the man had tumbled from his seat, the water once in his glass now residing in his lungs, and the hotel doctor had been called for, frantically. Severus had been careful to use the milder form of the curse, but it was certain that while the Englishman would survive, his recovery would take weeks at the least, perhaps even months.

And now Severus stood outside the gates of Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo with Draco, dressed in their most sedate black wool suits, neckties neatly tied, boots polished and heavy coats fastened tightly against the wind. 

It was mad, this scheme, Severus knew that full well, but he could think of no other way to position them both in a manner in which they could have access to Rasputin. The circle surrounding him was suspicious of strangers at the moment--of each other even, truth be told--and Draco refused to consider the possibility of using the girls against their father. 

Not that Severus could blame him. He'd not been pleased with the thought either. 

There was only one other route of access left, and Severus had insisted they wait two days before attempting it. 

Severus walked up to the guard gate, Draco trailing behind, and he frowned as an automobile rumbled past them, its horn blaring loud and bright. A girl hung out the back window, the ribbons on her black hat snapping in the breeze and her dark blonde curls catching on the corner of her mouth, and she waved cheerfully at the guard before she was pulled back inside by a pair of hands. 

The guard eyed Severus in that suspicious Russian way he was becoming used to, and Severus held out a scrap of parchment upon which he'd forged a note from Anna Vyrubova, confidante to the tsaritsa. It wasn't his best work, he would admit, but it was good enough that with the slightest push of Legilimency against the weak mind of the guard, they were waved in and directed to Vyrubova's dwelling on the compound, a large yellow cottage, bitterly cold in the winter due to shallow foundations, that had a reputation of being the most powerful residence in the empire. 

"I can't believe it worked," Draco murmured, hurrying to catch up to Severus's long strides and Severus scowled. 

"Keep your tongue, Mr Malfoy," he said quietly, eyeing the guard escorting them, and Draco had the grace to flush at his near admission. 

The boy pulled the collar of his coat up, huddling in the heavy wool, and he kicked at a snowdrift, sending clumps of slush scattering across the courtyard. 

Vyrubova's cottage was nearest to the palace itself in the compound, and they had barely been seated in the small, chilly parlour when Vyrubova entered, a frown creasing her plain brow. 

"What nonsense is this?" she snapped as Severus stood with a pointed glare at Draco, who rose slowly and bowed. 

He managed to make even the most common courtesy appear a chore. Severus's mouth tightened.

Reluctantly biting back a sharp rebuke for the brat--a lecture would come later, of course, and he was quite certain Draco was aware of that fact--he handed Vyrubova the note, his eyes fixed on hers, his mind pressing gently against her mental boundaries. "Merely keeping an appointment, Anna Alexandrovna," he said, and at her slow blink, he smiled. Really, Muggles were so terribly easy. "It seems your mistress is in need of an English tutor?"

\--------------------

Harry had barely spoken through the meeting, only breaking his silence a handful of times during the reports to agree with a strategy or once to suggest an alternative plan.

Tonks watched the others carefully. There were the occasional glances and raised eyebrows, but Harry seemed oddly older tonight, and even Moody listened when he spoke, and his disagreements were mildly expressed. For Moody, at least. 

Kingsley had just finished his report on Death Eater movements when Harry leaned forward in his chair, and the candlelight from the table glinted off his glasses. 

"What about Snape and Malfoy?" he asked. Remus gave him a sharp look and set his quill aside. 

"We're still looking," Remus began, but Harry cut him off with a shake of his head. 

"Looking isn't good enough. I want them found. The sooner the better." Harry's jaw was tight and Tonks tugged at her fringe, suddenly uncomfortable. "We should have fifty Aurors out searching for them—" Harry's voice broke. 

Minerva cleared her throat in the uneasy silence. "There are resources put to better use, Mr Potter. May I remind you that we have just lost a rather important battle?" 

Harry just looked at her for a long moment, and then he shrugged and leaned back in his chair, folding a scrap of parchment into long pleats. 

Odd, Tonks thought, ignoring Hestia's cheerful rambling about tracking orders from Knockturn shops. Remus was watching Harry thoughtfully, and he exchanged a long glance with Minerva. She lifted one shoulder almost imperceptibly, and Remus shook his head. 

Tonks chewed her lip. Something was wrong, she could feel it, roiling unspoken beneath the surface. 

There was the usual bustle and flurry when the meeting ended, and Tonks made her way to Harry's side. She pulled him away from a spirited discussion with Moody and Kingsley on the benefits of Imperius as a offensive measure. "Walk with me." 

Harry followed her through the foyer and out onto the steps. It was a warm night, and a faint breeze ruffled Tonks' pink curls. "What was that in there?" she asked and Harry shrugged again. 

Tonks turned towards him. "Harry," she said, and he sighed and looked away. "Come on. I may be a tit at times, but I'm not thick as pig shit, you know." 

A Muggle automobile turned down the street and the lights curved over them for a moment. 

"We should be _doing_ something," Harry said finally. "They killed him, and God only knows where they're now and after all that was said after the funeral no one's out there--" 

"I'm still looking," Tonks said, and she fought to keep her voice under control. "What is it you want done, Harry? Do you honestly think you're the only one grieving him?" 

She might as well have slapped him. He took a step backwards, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. "I want them to pay," he said softly, and when he looked at her, his eyes frightened her. It was the first time she'd ever felt uneasy about him, the first time she'd ever realised how powerful Harry truly was. 

"Blood for blood," Harry murmured and he looked up at the dark sky. "It's only fair, after all." 

Tonks shivered.

\--------------------

The staff rooms at Alexander Palace were ridiculous, Draco decided, folding his last necktie and shoving the recalcitrant dresser drawer closed with a muffled curse. Small and cramped and whatever blind idiot had decided on _that_ wallpaper should be hexed just on principle.

He wasn't even going to begin on how appalling it was to share a bath not only with Snape but with two other members of the staff as well.

At least Snape's claim of guardianship over Draco had netted them two separate bedrooms with a tiny sitting room between.

Snape had, of course, taken the larger bedroom. Sodding bastard.

Still, Draco was willing to concede that their new quarters were far more comfortable, not to mention warm, than the rooms at the hotel had been. 

Vyrubova had been easily deceived, and it'd only taken another day before they'd received a note from her, delivered by a silent, grim-faced soldier, informing Snape that he and his ward were to appear at the palace again, this time for an audience with the tsar and tsaritsa. 

It had been a brief meeting, first with Alexandra Fyodorovna, who had queried Snape extensively on his education and references, and Draco had watched with admiring fascination as Snape calmly answered, lying through his teeth, and presenting the tsaritsa with falsified documentation of a degree from Trinity, Oxford, and references from posts never held, given by names Draco was quite familiar with. 

Draco had never seen such an intricately beautiful web of lies. And when Snape mentioned a post near Kensington, and the tsaritsa spoke wistfully of summers spent wandering the grounds with her cousins, Draco noted the faint flicker of Snape's eyes and wasn't surprised when Snape began to speak of boating upon the lake. 

Nicholas Aleksandrovich had entered towards the end of Snape's interrogation, and it had taken the tsar only a few minutes and the barest trace of Snape's unspoken Imperius to determine that the professor was adequate enough to tutor his children. "If you and Anya agree," he had said to the tsaritsa, "I have no objections," and with that they had been commanded to gather their belongings and return to the palace immediately. 

Royalty, it seemed, had no thought to others' schedules. 

The door opened and Snape strode in as if he had every right to Draco's room. 

"I don't suppose you've ever heard of knocking," Draco snapped, and he wasn't entirely certain if the warmth on his cheeks came from annoyance or the fact that the fitted black coat and trousers suited Snape well. 

The professor had pulled his lank hair back loosely, in the manner Father had favoured, and he was still tying his necktie as he scowled at Draco. "You're not even dressed." 

"Oh, for Merlin's sake." Draco rolled his eyes. Only Snape would assume that the absence of shoes and coat put one in a state of dishabille. He slipped his feet in the stiff leather boots and a quick wave of his wand laced them. "I don't see why we can't dine in our rooms tonight," he grumbled. "I'm tired." 

Snape handed him his coat. "Do believe me when I say that the last thing we wish to do is to offend the other staff." 

Draco buttoned the coat, smoothing his palms over the soft wool. "What does it matter? We can always Obliviate them." 

"Lovely." Snape pushed him out the door and down the hall. "Might I remind you that it would be in our best interests to perform as little magic as necessary at the moment?" 

Draco stomped down the stairs. Honestly. If the bastard thought he was going to live entirely as a Muggle for the next week-- 

The staff dining room was small and cosy, although evidently the mad wallpaperer had been let loose here as well. Draco flinched at the overwhelmingly pink cabbage roses crawling up the walls. 

"Horrible, isn't it? The tsaritsa has lovely taste in everything except wallpaper." A cheerful dark-haired man grinned at him and handed him a glass of red wine. "Pierre Gilliard, at your service. French tutor to the children." 

"Draco Malfoy," Draco murmured, and he sipped the wine. It was heady and rich, almost comparable to the collection in the Malfoy cellars. 

"Ah, yes. The ward." Gilliard eyed him curiously. "It's not often we have other children about." 

Draco rankled at the slight, but before he could open his mouth, Snape stepped in, introducing himself with a sharp glance at Draco, and Draco lifted his glass to his mouth again as he moved to the table. 

A woman smiled at him and patted the chair next to her. "Sit, lovely." She filled his glass again with wine. "Alexandra Alexandrovna Tegleva, but you may call me Sascha. Everyone else does." 

"With the greatest affection, my dear Sascha," Gilliard said, making an exaggerated bow without spilling a drop of wine. 

Sascha laughed. "Do sit down, you fool, so we can eat. I'm starving." 

Dinner was pheasant, roasted in white wine and tarragon, and pommes au gratin, accompanied by round hunks of black bread and more of the excellent wine, as well as vodka, which seemed to be a stable at every Russian table, Draco thought with a sigh. Gilliard sat next to Snape, leaning over him occasionally to speak to Draco, and it was through his chatter that the tsarevich and the Grand Duchesses were mentioned. 

There were four girls, Gilliard said, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, known to their family and the staff collectively as OTMA, and he laughed. "We often speak of them as if they're one, which is a pity, really. They're all quite individual." He poured another glass of wine. "I'm quite fond of Olga Nicholaievna myself," he admitted. "Charming girl and quite adept at French. If only I could convince Nastenka of the same." 

"Nastenka?" Snape set his knife down, taking a bite of pheasant. His mouth was wet and slick, and Draco drained his wineglass, shoving aside the entirely inappropriate image that came to mind. His Occlumency was adequate, thanks to Aunt Bella, but the last thing he needed was for Snape to see _that_ thought.

Gilliard looked slightly chagrined. "Anastasia Nicholaievna. The dear girl dislikes formality, but it's not my place to use such terms--" 

"Oh, do stop blustering," Sascha said with a laugh across the table. "You know exactly what Nastenka'd have to say to that." 

"As long as the tsaritsa never discovered." A man not much older than Snape raised his eyebrow. Derevenko, Draco recalled from earlier introductions, a sailor assigned to look after the tsarevich. 

Sascha sighed. "True, that. She's far more of a stickler for propriety than the girls." She grinned at Draco. "I'm wondering what they'll think of you." 

"Sascha." Gilliard shook his head. "Don't frighten the boy." 

Sascha snorted. "And you'd not like him prepared for them all? You know what Maria's been like, mooning after that Demenkov. At least he's been sent back to the front again." She tilted her head to one side, a dark curl falling across her cheek, and studied Draco. "You're quite pretty enough and if it weren't for Pierre here, I might be tempted myself. You've not a sweetheart of your own hanging about, have you?" 

"Don't be ridiculous." Draco blushed and he reached for the wine bottle, pouring another glass. He ignored the amused smirk Snape gave him. Really. You'd think Muggles might have been taught proper manners at the very least. 

Snape took pity on him then, which was utterly appalling, really, and turned the conversation onto the children's studies which sent Sobolev, the maths tutor, off into a morose rant on the tsarevich's disdain for calculations. 

Gilliard sighed. "Shouldn't let him near the vodka, really," he whispered, and Sobolev glared at him. 

"What about their religious studies?" Snape asked over the rim of his own glass of vodka. 

"Instruction with Father Alexandre Vasilyev twice weekly," Gilliard said promptly. "And services at the chapel on Sundays, of course." 

"Rasputin doesn't attend to them?" Snape set his glass aside calmly amidst a sudden, distinctly uncomfortable silence. No one met his eyes; they all stared down at their plates, toying with their food. Draco raised his eyebrow, and Snape smiled faintly. 

Gilliard cleared his throat finally. "On occasion they meet with the _staretz,"_ he said, and Draco nearly snorted at his calling the drunken sot they'd watched all week a holy man. "Always supervised by the tsaritsa or Anna Alexandrovna." 

"I see," Snape said. 

Sascha looked up then, fiercely. "Whatever you might have heard, Mr Snape," she said, her voice tight, "I can assure you the girls have never--with that man--" She broke off, her cheeks flaming red. 

"Sascha," Derevenko murmured, and she turned bright, angry eyes on him. 

"I _won't_ have them thinking what the rest of Petrograd does." 

Sobolev frowned at her. "No one said--" 

"I can assure you," Draco said, leaning forward and setting his wineglass aside, "that we don't." 

Sascha hesitated, and then she nodded, folding her serviette and tucking it under her plate. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'm done." 

They watched her leave in silence, and when the door closed behind her, Gilliard sighed. 

"Forgive her, if you will. Father Grigori--" he paused for a moment, his discomfort obvious. "Father Grigori tried to force--well. Shall we just say that she prefers for the Grand Duchesses to not be left alone with him?" 

"Entirely understandable." Snape poured another glass of wine for Gilliard. 

Draco felt Snape's foot press lightly on his, and he took the meaning at once. He eyed the closed door speculatively. 

Sascha would perhaps be someone to cultivate. 

 

****

Chapter Seven

Severus waited impatiently outside the white and gold doors, pacing along the narrow hallway. He'd gone over Gibbes' notes the evening before, dredging his memory for every scrap he could recall of Muggle literature.

It was a near impossibility, this. Utterly mad and he should be locked up in Mungo's for even beginning to think he could pretend to be tutor to _Muggles--_

The door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped through, dressed in the dark trousers and coat that seemed to be de rigueur for the court. 

"Pyotr Vasilyevitch Petrov." He shook Severus' hand firmly, then began walking, speaking the entire time. "Russian language and literature and head tutor for the children. You will be responsible for the Grand Duchesses' instruction in English language and literature, of course, continuing from Mr Gibbes' curriculum. The tsarevich at the moment is focusing on his French studies. I believe you've already met Gilliard and Sobolev?" 

"Yes." Severus turned down the corridor behind the burly man. He rather appreciated his brusqueness; it reminded him of himself. 

Petrov nodded. His heels clicked against the polished parquet. "Schneider is the children's governess; Kardovskiy is the drawing master. Father Alexandre covers their religious education. Kliekenburg is the German tutor, and Ivanov is responsible for history. Lessons in physics and the other sciences are conducted at the local gymnasium laboratories when deemed necessary." He pulled several papers from his portfolio and handed them to Severus. 

The sheets were filled with a detailed schedule, noting where each of the Imperial children was expected to be each hour of the weekday, from a rising hour of six a.m. until they were allowed free time to gather with their parents each evening in the Mauve Room. Severus was pleased with the structure. He held firmly to the belief that to allow the brats the freedom of leisure led to utter anarchy. 

He and Albus had argued the point quite frequently over tea. The damned fool had always been far too indulgent. 

"Christenson," Petrov continued, "handles dance instruction twice weekly for each of the Grand Duchesses. On the rare occasions that his time falls within yours, do make certain they reach the reception room on the hour or he complains rather vociferously to the tsaritsa. High-strung and temperamental, that one. Tegleva—-Sascha--is the head maid responsible for the children and is assisted by Utkina. Should you ever encounter difficulties with the girls, I would suggest enlisting their help or Gilliard's." He gave Severus a significant look. "Particularly when it comes to Anastasia Nicholaievna. She can be--" he hesitated, "--high-spirited." 

"I rather think I have handled far more difficult students," Severus said dryly. At least with the Grand Duchess he needn't worry about someone being sent to infirmary by a rogue hex. 

Petrov threw open the door to a side room, olive-papered walls warm and bright from two wide windows at one end. Three girls dressed in similar plain white shirtwaists and black skirts looked up in surprise from papers scattered across the heavy walnut table and then rose. 

"Petrov," the eldest said, with a warm smile, and he bowed over her hand. 

Severus studied the girls. They ranged from sixteen to twenty and their relationship was obvious in their strong features, so very like the portraits of their mother he had examined. 

"Mr Snape," Petrov said, "allow me to present the Grand Duchesses Olga Nicholaievna, Tatiana Nicholaievna, and Maria Nicholaievna. However, it seems Anastasia Nicholaievna has once again attempted to shirk her educational responsibilities." 

"Nastenka's only nervous," Maria said softly and she gave Severus an uncertain look, her blue eyes wide. "Sig was her favourite, you see." 

"Gibbes," Petrov explained with a chuckle. "The children enjoy their nicknames." 

"Of course," Severus murmured. Albus had left a few notes on the family in his research, and he'd read of the family's closeness. It was bizarre to him, the concept of siblings. All the ones he'd known had despised each other by the time they'd come to Hogwarts. He supposed, however, these girls were different. Hated by their own people, their lives to be snuffed out so brutally, the only friends they had--the only ones who could truly understand their life--were their family. 

He envied them that. 

"I'll leave you to your studies then," Petrov said, "and should I find Anastasia Nicholaievna I'll send her along." He looked at his watch. "Gilliard will have the girls after lunch, of course." 

Severus turned to the girls and he scowled. "I believe you were reading _Titus Andronicus?"_

They opened their books with a collective sigh.

\--------------------

Draco shivered and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. He'd have to work on his warming charm; what was effective in Scotland could barely hold up to the Russian chill. The snow was crisp and white against his boots, unlike the grey slush of Petrograd. He crossed one of the bridges that arched gracefully over the frozen canals, black wrought iron railings draped with glistening icicles, and made his way along the edge of a pond, scratched with lines from ice skates.

It was beautiful out here, he had to admit, looking up at the tall black oaks that curled over him, their bare branches dark against the grey of the sky. 

A dog's bark caught his attention, and he glanced over at the island in the middle of the pond. A King Charles spaniel growled at him before bouncing off towards a flash of grey and red through the underbrush. 

The only way of reaching the island was across the frozen pond and Draco was quite certain he had no intention of stepping foot on that potential death trap. He glanced around quickly, slipping his hand into his pocket, his fingers curling around his wand. He suspected that what he was about to do would send Snape into a tirade if he discovered. 

He gripped his wand tightly and Apparated, landing easily on the edge of the brush along the beach. At least he didn't have to worry about a ridiculous license here. 

A branch cracked to his right, and he sighed. "All right. Whomever you are, you might as well come out." 

There was a rustle of dry leaves, and then a girl not much younger than himself emerged from behind a tree, her red scarf bright against her grey coat. Her hair was dark blonde, with the slightest reddish tint beneath her black knit cap, and her face was round and plump. She was small and sturdy--Pansy would have called her fat, earning her a slap from Millicent--and she regarded him with cool blue eyes that reminded him vaguely of his mother. 

"You're not allowed on the island without permission," she said, and she snapped a photograph of him with a small brown camera held at her waist. 

Draco blinked. "What the hell are you doing--" 

The spaniel barked at him, and the girl laughed. "Hush, Jemmy." She tilted her head to one side, regarding Draco for a long a moment, and for some strange reason he let her. "You're the new tutor's boy, aren't you? I heard Zhilik telling Sascha about you." 

"Zhilik?" Draco asked curiously. 

"Gilliard," she said as if he was a fool, and Draco bristled. 

"Exactly who are you?" he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "Perhaps you're the one not meant to be out here--" 

She broke into bright laughter that lit up her face and suddenly she was quite pretty. "Anastasia Nicholaievna," she said, stooping to pick up the spaniel, the camera swinging from the leather strap around her neck, and Draco flushed, realising his faux pas. Snape would vivisect him when he found out. 

"Your Highness." Draco bowed, a bit stiffly since Grand Duchess or not the girl was, after all, a Muggle, and Anastasia rolled her eyes. 

"Stop that," she said. "It's such a bore." She scratched behind the spaniel's ears. "Call me Nastya. And how'd you manage to get on the island, anyway? I pulled the bridges up when I crossed over." 

Draco hesitated and glanced back at the icy pond. "I walked," he said finally, and he narrowed his eyes at her. "Why aren't you in lessons? I'm quite aware that you're to be tutored in English right now." 

Anastasia's face crumpled slightly and for just a moment she looked young and frightened before she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I don't want my Sig replaced, not even by your father--" 

"He's not my father," Draco said hotly, the tension of the past few days welling up in him. "My father's dead." 

There was a silence, broken only by Anastasia's quiet "oh." 

She shifted the dog in her arms and it whined softly. "Hush, Jemmy," she murmured, and she gave Draco a sideways glance. "I'm sorry. Has it been very long?" 

"No." Draco knew it wasn't her fault, that she couldn't know, but he hated her for making him think of it all. Stupid Muggle. His hair fell over his eyes, sweeping forward from underneath his ushanka, and he hunched his shoulders in his heavy coat. 

A soft hand curled over his elbow. "Come on," Anastasia said, pulling him towards a thicket of holly bushes, bright green and glossy against the snow. "There's a fire this way." 

He let her lead him further into the island.

\--------------------

Anna Vyrubova quite enjoyed her position in Russian society, detractors be damned. No one had the ear of the tsaritsa as did she, although that wretched Lili Dehn would love to usurp her, she was quite certain.

Cow. 

It would be impossible, however, Anna knew that full well. As long as she had the support of the staretz her place at the tsaritsa's right hand was secure. Rasputin was needed at court; Alexandra Fyodorovna trusted him more than the doctors to keep Alexei Nicholaievich alive. 

A mother's love for her son was a very powerful force, Anna had found. Odd that. She didn't quite understand it, perhaps because the thought of children was anathema to her. Nevertheless, she was not a foolish woman, and she was quite willing to use the tsaritsa's emotions to strengthen her power. 

The footman cleared his throat behind her. "Grigori Efimovich, madam." 

Anna held her hands out to the staretz. "Grigori," she said warmly, and the press of his beard was rough against her cheek. 

"And how are Papa and Mama?" Rasputin asked, his eyes bright as he smiled at her. "Well, I hope." 

"Quite." Anna sat on the velvet sofa and reached for the samovar. "Nicky says the news from the front is heartening." She handed Rasputin a cup of tea. The delicate china looked oddly out-of-place in his callused hands. "And Alix has found a replacement for poor Gibbes--" 

Rasputin frowned and leaned forward, his worn black peasant coat falling open. Anna caught a glimpse of white silk shirt before he pulled it tight again. "A replacement?" 

"You weren't here." Anna shifted nervously, taking a sip of her tea. She ought to have consulted with him, she supposed. Ought to have had him pray over the decision, at least. "A decision had to be made; the doctors say Sidney will be confined for at least a month, perhaps more. Pneumonia of sorts, it seems. And Mr Snape had excellent references." 

There was a silence and Anna held her breath. She was never certain how Grigori Efimovich would react, and his anger was terrifying. 

He narrowed his eyes. "You know the children must be protected." 

"They will be." Anna's hand barely shook as she set aside her teacup. "I can assure you of that." 

"You had best," Rasputin said tightly, and the chill in his eyes twisted Anna's stomach. 

She looked away.

\--------------------

The little house was robin's egg blue, trimmed with white cornices. It was tucked behind a clump of silver birches and in spring Draco could imagine that it'd be quite well hidden.

Anastasia had lit a fire in the small hearth and the flames crackled and lapped happily at the pile of leaves and twigs. They curled in front of it, on a thick wool rug with blankets pulled over their shoulders, and Jemmy romped between them, pausing occasionally to lick a hand or a cheek. 

Draco pushed the dog away and Anastasia laughed at him. Her nose was pink and a leaf was caught in her hair. Draco plucked it free and tossed it onto the fire. "So this is your house." 

"Mine and Olinshka and Tanya and Mashka and Alyosha's." She stretched her feet out towards the fire, wiggling her stockinged toes. "No adults have ever been allowed without our permission. Not even Papa can come here unless he's asked." She looked wistfully at the flames. "It's safe here." 

Draco propped himself on one elbow. "Do you hate it much, being the tsar's daughter?" 

"It's not that bad." Anastasia lay back against the rug and she looked over at Draco. Her blue eyes were dull. "It frightens me sometimes, I suppose, the way people hate us." She sighed. "The courtiers try not to say things around us children, but we're not stupid. We know what's happening. There's talk of Papa abdicating in favour of Uncle Mishka because perhaps the Bolsheviks will like him better." 

Jemmy snuffled against Draco's face and he absently stroked the spaniel's ears. "Do you think they would?" 

Anastasia shrugged, a tired little roll of her shoulders. "I think they'd only like someone they picked. People are odd that way." She twisted over onto her stomach and propped her chin on her fist. "What's England like? Mama was raised there, you know." 

"Wet," Draco said with a laugh, and he felt a strange relief at seeing the small smile that crossed Anastasia's face. "But nice. I rather miss it." 

"And your father." It was said softly and somehow Draco didn't mind so much now. 

He nodded. "And my mother." He looked away. "She's ill." 

Anastasia hooked one foot behind her ankle, bending her legs up. Her skirt fell to her knees and Draco had a feeling that was rather improper. He liked her more for not caring. "So you're here with Snape then." 

"He was my professor." Draco rubbed at one of the stylised cream flowers on the rug. "And a friend of my father's." He hesitated. "My mother's, too, I suppose." 

"Is he horrible?" Anastasia peered up at him through her fringe. "Wards in books are always being treated terribly by their guardians." 

Draco snorted. "He's not that bad. I rather liked him once." He felt his face warm slightly. Perhaps liked was the wrong word. 

He'd spent most of fifth year mooning about Snape, like a ridiculous idiot. Zabini had almost figured it out, or perhaps he even had, judging by the sly comments he'd made on the train home, and when Pansy had visited the Manor that summer, as she had every year since they were eight, she'd asked him directly if he fancied the professor, and when he'd told her she was mad, she'd only laughed. 

"You're a liar, Draco Malfoy," she'd said, amused, and she'd tossed her dark hair. "I wouldn't mind if you did, you know. He's not pretty, I suppose, but he's powerful and that's more important, really." She'd eyed him speculatively, her knees drawn up to her thin chest, and she'd taken another drag off their shared cigarette, blowing smoke out his open bedroom window. "It's not like either of us expects the other to be faithful, is it?" 

And Draco had flushed at that reference to their parents' plans for them which had made Pansy laugh even more and she'd pushed her bare foot against his hip, nearly knocking him off the windowseat. 

"Fancy him, you poof," she'd said with a smile. "Better him than Potter, and I've seen the way you look at his arse too." 

Draco missed her, fiercely, and he hated that fact. 

He studied Anastasia. She reminded him of Pansy, in an inexplicable way. It wasn't the way she looked or the way she spoke. Pansy had been much tarter than the Grand Duchess, and Anastasia was prettier than Pansy. But there was a way they both had of watching him, and listening. 

Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes that he'd managed to steal from a corner kiosk when Snape hadn't been looking. He held a cig out. 

"Thanks." Anastasia sat up, cigarette in hand and she scrabbled for the matches she'd tossed aside earlier. Draco watched her; the red-tipped splinters of wood were still odd to him, but he let her light his own cig, and he breathed in the bitter smoke, holding it against the roof of his mouth before exhaling slowly. 

"Will you get in trouble?" he asked, and he tapped the ash against his boot. 

She shrugged, and the way she held the cigarette easily in his hand told him she'd done this more than once. Pity. He'd like to have thought he was corrupting a Grand Duchess. 

"They won't find out. Besides, I usually get one from Gilliard, so he can't lecture me." Anastasia rolled the cigarette between her fingers. "They calm me. Not a lot can lately." 

"Tell me about it." Draco sighed, and he let his head fall back against the rug. 

He relaxed into the comfortable silence. It had been too long since he'd felt peaceful. 

Odd to find it here in a strange country with a strange girl. 

He thought perhaps he might like it. 

 

****

Chapter Eight

Severus peered at Draco over the edge of _Titus Andronicus._ The boy was sprawled across the chair, one leg draped over the arm, his booted foot thudding softly against the stuffed brocade. He stared off into space, entirely oblivious to the pale silver sparks dropping from the tip of his wand as he tapped it against his shoulder.

"Do you mind?" Severus snapped finally, stretching across the bed, and Draco glanced over at him with a sigh. 

The electric lights buzzed and hummed above them as they flickered faintly against the darkness, and long shadows almost hid Draco's scowl. 

"I'm bored," the boy complained, and he slid his wand back into his pocket. He pushed himself up and walked over to the window. "Merlin, does it _ever_ stop snowing here?" 

"No," Severus said, returning to the damned play. Tatiana Nicholaievna, the wretched girl, had shown him up this morning and he had no intention of allowing her to do the same again. 

The acrid smell of tobacco caused him to raise his head. Draco held a cigarette in one hand, and he was staring out at the falling snow, the light shining against his pale hair. He looked remarkably like his father at that moment, and Severus set his book aside, studying him. 

"Why'd you take the Mark?" Severus asked suddenly, not even certain where the question came from. 

Draco glanced back at him, exhaling a thin grey stream of smoke that Severus was quite aware he should disapprove of. 

He didn't. 

"Why wouldn't I?" Draco shrugged and he leaned against the windowsill. His black vest hung open; the collar of his white shirt was loosed. 

The clothes suited him, Severus thought. Not that he should think so, of course. Highly improper of him to consider how enjoyable it would be to pull Draco down on the bed next to him, mouth moving across that sharp, angled jaw, to unbutton the small mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt-- 

"I suppose it was expected." Draco tapped his cigarette against the windowsill and ash drifted down. Severus flicked his wand at it, banishing it before it struck the silk carpet. Draco took another drag on the cigarette. "I remember being little and seeing the traces of Father's Mark--" and the boy's voice only trembled slightly "--and it fascinated me. And when he told me about the Death Eaters--" 

"Lucius always was an idealistic fool," Severus said. "I suppose he left out the tales of murder and mayhem?" 

Draco smiled faintly. "He told them. But they never sounded real to me. They were just the stories I was told before bed. No more real than the stories of Merlin." 

"Stupid boy." No wonder the brat had stumbled in over his head. Severus cursed Lucius soundly for what he'd done to his son. Not that he'd done much better. The boy had still been failed. 

Draco's eyes darkened. "Don't--" he began hotly, but Severus cut him off. 

"Stupid you are, just as I was at your age." Severus could feel the Mark burning into his skin. He despised it. "I was a fool for selling my soul to a madman." 

Draco hesitated only a moment. "Why'd you do it?" 

"Power," Severus said without pause. "So very appealing to a boy who had none." He looked away, his hand rubbing lightly across the leather cover of the play. 

Draco sat back in his chair, taking another drag from his cigarette before banishing it. Severus sincerely hoped the damned thing didn't land in the middle of a forest. "You're a Mudblood," Draco said, with a puzzled frown. "They should have hated you." 

"Half-blood, thank you, and I was quite good at pretending." Severus shrugged. "And people are willing to believe what they would prefer to overlook. As long as I was useful, my father's heritage could be ignored." 

"But you're an excellent wizard. How can that be if you're--" 

"Stop thinking like an idiot," Severus said wearily. "His Lordship is a half-blood. So is Potter. I would call neither of them weak wizards. Hermione Granger, who, might I remind you, trounced you soundly in several subjects last term, is Muggleborn. Birth, Draco, has nothing to do with one's worth or abilities." 

Draco gave him a sullen look. "Well, it should." 

With a shrug, Severus reached for his book. Eventually the boy would learn. 

Perhaps.

\--------------------

The staff dining room was nearly empty when Draco made it to breakfast.

Snape had woken him up over an hour past, and Draco had ignored the annoyed rap on his bedroom door, pulling the pillow over his head. It was cold and he was tired, and it wasn't as if he were required to teach, after all.

Only the rumbling of his stomach had pulled him from his bed.

Sascha looked up from mending one of the Grand Duchesses' skirts. Judging from the tear, Draco suspected it was Anastasia's. She smiled at him, dipping her needle into the dark wool. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

Draco spooned porridge into a bowl, dousing it with cream. He sat down across from her. "It's far too early to be alive."

Her laugh was bright and pleasant. "Don't tell Nastenka that. It's hard enough to rouse her in the morning as it is." She eyed him. "She's quite enamoured with you, you realise."

Draco's cheeks warmed, and he swallowed a spoonful of porridge. "She's decent enough, I suppose." 

Sascha knotted her thread, biting it off at the hem. "I'm fond of her." She set the skirt aside and reached for the pot of zavarka, pouring the strong tea into a two teacups, and adding boiling water from the samovar and two spoonfuls of honey into each cup.

She handed one to Draco.

He took it gratefully. It wasn't the same as British tea--there was a stronger edge to it, and the honey added a sweetness that wasn't entirely familiar. He rather liked it, actually. Not that he'd admit that. He sipped it slowly, silent for a moment. "Can I ask a rather forward question?"

"Perhaps." Sascha tilted her head to one side, curiously.

"What you said the other night—about Petrograd thinking something about the Grand Duchesses--"

Sascha's eyes narrowed, and she tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind one ear. "Because of Father Grigori." She shook her head. "The man's not right. I can't say what it is--I don't know. But he's--" She bit her lip, and lowered her voice. "He's a drunk who can't keep his trousers buttoned. And I know more than one servant here in the palace who he's forced his attentions on. Or tried to." She looked away.

"Like yourself." Draco set his teacup down. She was too bitter not to have been involved.

She looked at him then and her mouth was tight. "I don't care for him. And those letters that have circulated--"

"What letters?" This could be useful. Perhaps.

"There are letters in which he's bragged about his association with the tsaritsa and the girls." Sascha ran a fingertip along the edge of her teacup. "There are implications that he's--with them--" She pressed her lips together. 

"Has he?" Draco couldn't help but ask. This was His Lordship, after all, and Draco'd not put it past him to--he didn't even want to think about it. 

"No!" Sascha glared at him. "But he'd best watch himself. There are some people who wouldn't mind him disappearing--" She caught herself.

"Who?" Draco leaned forward, his hair brushing across his jaw.

Sascha stood up, nearly knocking her chair back. She clutched Anastasia's skirt tightly. "I have to get back to work."

And then Draco was alone, stirring his spoon lazily through his porridge. She knew something, that was clear. Whether or not she'd say was another matter.

He licked his spoon clean, thoughtfully.

\--------------------

Draco _hated_ Muggle automobiles.

He held onto the seat tightly as the car hit yet another pothole and gritted his teeth. Apparition was bloody well easier on one's arse. 

If he hadn't been wandering the hallway, attempting to avoid Snape--who was in a sodding bad mood, muttering about the idiocy of Shakespeare--he'd never have been dragged off into this ridiculous excursion by Anastasia. 

It wasn't as if he gave a damn about going to hospital anyway. 

Draco swore as the automobile swerved to avoid a horse and cart, slamming him against the upholstered side. Sascha landed against his shoulder with a soft grunt, and the maid calmly pulled herself upright. 

Maria Nicholaievna eyed Draco. "Have you never ridden in an automobile before?" she asked curiously, and her younger sister poked her. 

"Don't be rude, Mashka." Anastasia smoothed the front of her nurse's apron. The red cross was bright against her chest, and Draco had the wicked thought of exactly what Pansy would have to say about its positioning. He bit back a laugh, glaring instead at the Grand Duchesses. 

"The roads are better in England," he said haughtily, though he'd no idea at all of the condition of the Muggle streets, and Anastasia rolled her eyes. 

The car lurched to a stop--thank Merlin--and Draco clambered out after the Grand Duchesses and Sascha. 

He was curious, he had to admit. He'd never been inside a Muggle hospital and he couldn't imagine how their healers worked without magic. It seemed impossible. 

The doors of the hospital were heavy and thick, and the stench of blood and faeces and death drifted through the crowded hallways. Draco flinched at the horrific screams coming from various wards, and the glimpses he had of legless men and bandages soaked through with blood twisted his stomach. 

Anastasia and Maria walked through the wards smiling, stopping to speak with the soldiers. Some laughed and flirted with the tsar's daughters; others turned their faces away, humiliated at being seen in their condition. 

The girls threw themselves into their work, emptying bedpans, changing dressings, giving baths, and Draco soon found himself being ordered about, fetching clean bandages and carrying buckets of urine to the latrine. 

He'd protested only once, and the five-minute tirade he'd been subjected to by both Anastasia and Sascha had been enough.

"Is it always like this?" he asked Anastasia, as he helped her change the sheets on a comatose soldier's bed. 

She nodded. "The worst is when they die." She glanced down at the man between them. "You come in and they're gone and there's not even any need to ask because it's not likely they were discharged so quickly." She bit her lip. "I hate the war," she said softly, as she smoothed the blanket over the soldier's shoulders. "Papa says it's getting better, but all I see are more boys being killed or coming back without an arm or a leg because they stepped on a mine." 

Draco stared down at the soldier. He wasn't much older than Draco, maybe a year or two and his arm was missing, the stump bandaged tightly. The Muggles couldn't regrow limbs, of course. He shivered, running his fingers lightly over the blood-stained bandage. 

"And the ones that are wounded are sent back to the front as soon as they can carry a gun." Sascha came up behind them. She sighed, setting a small roll of bandages on the bed. A few snips of a pair of shears and the dirty bandages fell off, leaving mangled and charred flesh exposed. Draco's stomach lurched. 

"Papa says if Cousin Wilhelm'd only pulled his head from his arse--" 

"Nastenka!" Sascha gave Anastasia a sharp look as she tucked the bloody cotton in a small bag. "Watch yourself." 

"Well, it's true," Anastasia muttered under her breath, wrapping a fresh bandage around the stump of the soldier's shoulder. She pulled Draco's hand onto the bandage. "Be useful, will you?" 

Draco flinched at the seep of blood between his fingers, but he held the bandage in place as Anastasia lifted the soldier deftly, looping the bandage around his chest. He could feel the boy's warmth under his palm and somehow, in some odd way, it made him real. 

"What's his name?" Draco asked, not looking up at the Grand Duchess. She'd know; he knew she would. She was the type who'd make certain she did. Stupid girl. 

"Dimitri Sergeivich," she said, tying off the bandage. "He's been here for three weeks now and he's still to wake up." 

Draco smoothed his fingers over the white cotton. "Maybe he doesn't want to." He'd do anything he could to not wake up, he thought. To not know how life had changed. It was easier that way. 

"His wife's been here every day," Anastasia said quietly. "She took the train from Moscow as soon as they notified her. If I were him, I'd wake up just for her." She brushed Dimitri's hair back from his forehead. "Wouldn't you if someone loved you like that?" 

The sounds of the hospital echoed down the corridor and Draco's mouth twisted bitterly. No one ever had. Perhaps his mother, but now-- _Snape_ his mind whispered, and Draco hated that betrayal. He couldn't have that, never would, and he knew how futile it was to wish for it even late at night, alone in his bed with only his pathetic thoughts for company.

"Really, maudlinity doesn't suit you, Nastya," he snapped, and when he left the ward, he slammed the door shut behind him before Apparating away.

\--------------------

It was well past lunch when Severus left the library at last, a thick sheaf of paper in hand. His research was not what he would consider thorough, but it would do well enough to keep him in stead for the next few lessons.

"I never cared much for books," a voice said behind him, and Severus turned sharply. Rasputin leaned against the wall, dirty boots crossed at the ankle, his long rosary dangling from his neck, the Christ pressed to his hip. He smiled at Severus, a quick flash of yellow teeth in his coarse beard. "Snape, is it not? Mama has spoken well of you today." 

Severus nodded warily. "The tsaritsa has been most kind." 

The silence stretched out between them, heightening Severus's unease as the other wizard regarded him in amusement. 

"I know who you are," Rasputin said finally, and Severus's hand tightened on his papers. "Or what, I should say." He pushed himself away from the wall, and his bright blue eyes glittered as he strode towards Severus, his boots clumping against the polished floor. "I can smell you. Feel it there, twisting right below the surface." 

He stopped, only centimetres away from Severus, and Severus could feel his breath hot against his cheek. He refused to flinch, instead holding himself tight and tense, meeting that cold gaze. 

"Wizard," Rasputin murmured. "A strong one, I think. And no one knows, do they?" He chuckled. "No need to hide it here. Mother Russia is most fond of her sorcerers." 

"England, however, is not." Severus pulled away then. "Is there something you wish, or may I return to my duties?" 

"You'll eat with me tonight," Rasputin said, and it was a command, not a request. "At Pitirim's house. Nine o'clock, and bring the boy." He stepped around Severus, the scent of whisky hanging strong on his black monk's robe. "And tell him he should be far more careful where he does his magic." He laughed as he strode down the hall, a sharp, rough bark that chilled Severus's bones. 

His Lordship. 

Severus's mouth thinned. 

He was going to throttle Draco Malfoy. 

 

****

Chapter Nine

Wizarding Petrograd was a series of narrow, cobblestone streets stretching through Vasilievsky Island at the mouth of the Neva River, the Bolshaya Neva and the Malaya Neva circling Vaska's stone embankments.

The snow was white here, protected from the exhaust of Muggle automobiles and the filthy hooves of horses. It piled high around doorsteps and windowsills, formed glittering drifts against flowerboxes filled with bright-red geraniums protected by hothouse charms. 

Draco sat at a windowside table in a tiny café, a small black and gold enameled samovar steaming in front of him, a teapot of zavarka next to it, covered by a wool cloth, and scraps of dense dark bread spread with white butter at his elbow. Music warbled bright and fast from a phonograph in the corner, and wizards and witches hurried past the window, a blur of vibrant wool coats and heavy dark furs. 

A child stared in at him, her chestnut brown curls glistening beneath a black fox ushanka dusted with snow. Her cheeks were pink with cold and she smiled at him shyly, waving a mittened hand before her mother dragged her off, scolding her for wandering away. 

Mother had always been after him like that in Diagon Alley, until finally in exasperation she'd assigned an elf to follow him in the vain attempt of keeping him out of trouble. 

It'd never worked. 

And when he'd been caught in some form of mischief, such as the time he'd attempted to nick a broom from Quality Quidditch, he'd always managed to blame the elf. 

Dobby'd hated him soon enough. 

A shadow fell across his teacup and Draco looked up with a frown. 

"Damn," he muttered and Snape raised an eyebrow at him, watching him through the window. 

He shrugged and held up his teacup, and Snape entered the café, striding over to Draco's table. He took the other seat, silently, peeling off his gloves. The waitress set another teacup in front of Snape, and Draco poured for him from the teapot, adding water from the samovar. Steam curled between them, a faintly fragrant mist of tea. 

Snape waited until he'd drunk half the cup, setting it down with a soft clink against the saucer. "The Grand Duchess is upset." 

"I don't care." Draco twisted his cup between his hands. It wasn't truly a lie. 

Snape eyed him, mouth pressed thin in that disapproving look Draco knew too well from the past year. He glared at his professor, raising his chin defiantly. "She's only a Muggle, anyway." 

"And we are here on her parents' forbearance." Snape ran a hand through his lank hair, damp with snow. It was an oddly intimate gesture, not one that Draco was used to his Head of House making. "Do not cock this up for us, Draco." 

Draco hunched into his coat. "I'm not," he said sullenly.

"I would strongly recommend that you not become too attached to the Grand Duchess either."

"Not bloody likely." Draco glared at him.

Snape snorted and reached for a crust of bread. "It would not be prudent for a number of reasons. And for God's sake, watch where you perform magic." 

"I've not--" Draco sat up at that, indignant despite the flush on his face. It wasn't like Apparition was magic, per se, really. It was just a convenience. 

Snape chewed slowly, then licked butter off his fingers. "We appear to have come to Grigori Efimovich's attention because of something _you_ did." He looked at Draco directly then, and Draco glanced away, cheeks still warm. 

"Just Apparition," he muttered, and Snape rolled his eyes. 

"Illegally, of course." 

"Well, it's not as if I can exactly get a license at the moment, is it?" Draco pulled his plate of bread away just as Snape reached for another crust. It was a childish reaction, but it gave him a modicum of pleasure to see Snape's annoyance. 

Snape brushed the crumbs off his fingers and stood. "Get up. We've a party to attend tonight and you had damned well best be on perfect behaviour." 

"Where?" Draco tossed a few of the odd, heavy coins on the table. He wasn't entirely certain if he'd underpaid or just given the tired girl coming out of the back with a plate of goulash an entire year's wages. 

"Alexander Nevsky Lavra," Snape said, heading for the door, and Draco blinked. A party. At a monastery. 

"What the hell are we supposed to wear?" he asked, trailing after. "You might be content to look like a vicar, but I'd prefer not to." 

Snape gave him a dark look, and the cowbell on the door clanked dully behind them.

\--------------------

The Alexander Nevsky Lavra complex had been built over the course of the eighteenth century, at the decree of Peter the Great. It grew from a tiny clutch of two-storeyed monk's cells along the eastern wall to a small village of churches and chapels, galleries and parks, monks' quarters and burial grounds.

Cemeteries lay on each side of the Overgate, the Tikhvinskoye on the right, Snape told him as they approached, the burial place of Tchaikovsky and Dostoyevsky, whomever they were, and the Lazarevskoye on the left. Draco pulled his coat tighter and shivered as they passed the fields of snow-covered granite monuments and bare-branched birches. He'd never liked the idea of death, not really, and the thought of cold, rotting corpses turned his stomach. He supposed that was rather surprising given his attempt to murder Dumbledore. But orders were orders and one didn't need to care for them to carry them out. Or at least he told himself. 

Passing through yet another gate, and past a small church, they trudged down the path, drifts of snow pulling at their boots and coats. 

The Metropolitan of Petrograd held one of the highest positions in the Russian Orthodox Church, Snape had informed him on the way back to Tsarskoye Selo that afternoon. Pitirim had been born into the church, the son of a priest at the Riga cathedral, and as such had been educated at Kiev's seminary. By the age of thirty-eight he had been made a full bishop. 

But it wasn't until Rasputin took him under his wing that the priest had truly risen in the ranks, advancing to an exarch in the Georgian Church with Nicholas's support. He had been brought to Petrograd barely a year past and his theatrical, flamboyant nature had already caused a great deal of scandal. 

As had his young lover, Ivan Osipenko. 

Snape rapped sharply at the door of the Metropolitan's House, a long, elegant two-storey building in the Classical style that rather reminded Draco of the Manor. Lights gleamed in the wide-paned arched windows, and shadows moved against the drapes. Muted strains of music could be heard faintly, and laughter, and when the door opened, welcome warmth rushed over Draco's chilled cheeks. 

"Who're you?" a drunken young man asked, leaning against the doorframe, glass of wine in his hand. He wore a khaki army captain's coat, hanging open to reveal a ribbed white undershirt stained with wine. 

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Invited guests of Grigori Efimovich." 

"Is that so?" The man drained his glass and stepped back, opening the door wider. "I don't suppose you brought a bottle with you?" 

"Don't be ridiculous." Snape swept past him. 

Draco stamped his boots and shrugged his coat off, handing it to the man. "Don't bother with the pockets. There's nothing in them that will interest you." 

He rather hoped the Muggle would be stupid enough to try. He was curious as to whether the Biting Curse would work. 

Snape had already entered the reception room. It was filled with people, men and women, all in various states of drunkenness and dishabille, and Draco was rather certain the two men in the corner had their hands down each other's trousers. He flushed and looked away quickly. 

"Mr Snape." Rasputin disentangled himself from a woman's embrace, dumping her unceremoniously off his lap as he stood. He waved them over. "Vanya. Drinks for our guests." 

A tall, lanky young man slid off the lap of an older, grey-bearded man, dressed in a heavy black robe, a gold medallion hanging around his neck. 

"Pitirim, Metropolitan of all Petrograd," Rasputin said, his hand on the shoulder of the robed man. "Allow me to present Mr Severus Snape, late of Oxfordshire, England and current tutor to the Grand Duchesses, and his ward." 

Draco's eyes narrowed. He was becoming damned tired of being merely the nameless ward. 

"Sit, sit," Pitirim said, and he handed them each a glass of wine given to him by Osipenko. 

Draco leaned back against the crimson velvet sofa. Snape was next to him, warm and solid, and the press of his arm against Draco's was oddly comforting. 

A roar of laughter from the hearthside caught his attention. A group of army officers and monks sat sprawled on pillows before the fire, a pretty blonde spread between them, and their fingers were pulling at the buttons of her dress, smoothing across the silk bodice, sliding up underneath the full skirt. Her head lay in one officer's lap and she was tracing the bulge of his cock, pressed obviously against his trousers, while he held a glass of wine to her lips, letting her sip from it. 

Draco wasn't entirely certain--his religious education, after all, had been confined to various holidays spent in the Malfoy pew at the Avebury Wizarding C of E--but he didn't think that most monasteries approved of such, particularly within their walls. 

"Pretty, isn't she?"

Draco flinched at Rasputin's rough laugh. It was one he'd heard before, more than once, and without turning his head, he knew the exact expression that would be on his face. Cold amusement, a touch of derision at his naïveté. "I suppose," he said, keeping his voice even as he sipped his wine. "Although perhaps too old for my tastes." 

Snape shifted next to him, suddenly, and Draco looked up. His face was blank, and his eyes were dark over the rim of his wineglass. 

"Leave the boy alone, Grishka," Pitirim said with a chuckle, and his hand slid up Osipenko's inner thigh, tracing small circles. The younger man's dark eyes met Draco's and he smiled, a curiously sharp twist of his thin lips. 

"Tell me, Snape," Pitirim continued, "the Grand Duchesses are quite charming, don't you think? Such lovely girls. I understand Father Alexandre does quite well with their studies." 

Draco barely heard Snape's reply. He turned away from Osipenko's uncomfortably steady gaze, fingers twisting the stem of his wineglass. Wine sloshed up the sides, dark red droplets splashing onto Draco's pale skin, glittering wetly in the long shadows cast by the electric sconce on the wall next to him. 

The woman in front of the fire arched slightly, her bodice gaping open, a nipple warm pink in the firelight. One of the monks knelt between her almost bare legs, his hand moving steadily beneath the folds of pale blue silk at her hips. The others egged him on, wine being poured all around. 

Draco averted his eyes and lifted his glass to his lips, cheeks heated. He shifted closer to Snape, taking an odd reassurance in the warmth of his touch. 

It was going to be a long night.

\--------------------

Andromeda was woken by a sharp, shrill cry, and she sat up immediately, the way she had when Nymphadora was little and nightmares plagued her.

"Go," Ted said sleepily, rolling over and taking the coverlet with him, but Andromeda was already out of bed without bothering with dressing gown and slippers. 

Narcissa was curled against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders and in her white gown with the pale blue silk laces, she looked almost sixteen again. 

"What is it?" Andromeda crawled up next to her sister and Narcissa let her draw her close. Her sister's breath was coming in quiet, quick huffs, and she clutched her locket between both hands, almost as if it were a rosary like the one Grandmother Black had carried all those years, running the beads through gnarled fingers as she counted off each of her grandchildren's sins. 

All three girls had always known to hide when they heard the clack of the rosary coming down the hall. Cousin Sirius, however, had always refused to, much to Regulus's chagrin. Poor Reggie. 

He'd so rather have hidden. 

The beads had stung, after all. 

"Draco," Narcissa murmured, and she looked up at her sister, pushing the locket into her hands. "Help Draco." 

Andromeda's fingers closed around the warm gold oval. "I don't know where he is, Cissy," she said, and her heart twisted at the anguish in her sister's eyes. 

"He's not here." Narcissa's face clouded, and Andromeda could feel her tense against her side, fighting to no avail the curse that'd addled her mind. "I'm frightened," she choked out, and tears trembled on the curve of her lashes, slowly spilling over. "I need my baby." 

"I know, love." Andromeda whispered against Narcissa's hair, rocking her gently, as she cast the Somnus Charm she'd used so often on Nymphadora. She couldn't imagine. Whatever her sister had done, whatever mistakes she might have made, she didn't deserve to lose her child. Her husband even, and Andromeda's mouth twisted down. There had never been any love lost between her brother-in-law and herself, but if he had one virtue--and only one, Andromeda was quite willing to wager--he had loved her sister. 

"Grigori," Narcissa said sleepily into Andromeda's shoulder. "I dreamed Grigori had him." Her eyes drifted closed. "Hurt him." Her fingers tightened on Andromeda's nightgown. "Severus won't let him," she whispered. "He promised." 

Andromeda sat quietly, staring into the darkness long after her sister slept.

\--------------------

The fire had settled into orange-black embers, and two of the officers had gone upstairs with the woman, while the monks slept on the cushions. Other guests had drifted off, to various parts of the Metropolitan's quarters or to home or on to another party at Prince Michael Andronnikov's flat on the corner of Fontanka and Troitskaya.

The Metropolitan himself snored softly, stretched out on his lounge, robes wrapped around his bulky frame. 

Draco was curled into one corner of the couch, feet somehow stockinged, half-filled wineglass still in his hand, and he thought perhaps he might have drunk a bit too much. His head was pleasantly light and empty and for the first time in days he felt nothing but a delightful floating sensation. There was nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. 

Everything was lovely. 

Snape was speaking with Rasputin, quietly, and Draco was fairly certain they had been discussing Divination which surprised him. He had thought Snape had little patience with such tripe. 

"Before the New Year," Rasputin said into his glass of vodka, and it dribbled down his beard. "I see it. When and where, I have yet to discover." 

Snape leaned forward. "Only flashes then?" 

"Enough of them." Rasputin frowned into his empty glass, and reached for the bottle. His hand shook only slightly, but vodka splashed onto his trousers. "Death doesn't frighten me." 

"Death frightens all men. Wizard or Muggle," Snape said and he took the bottle from Rasputin, pouring himself another glass. He leaned back against the couch and Draco felt his hand brush across his knee. It was a soothing press of fingers over the soft wool of his trousers, and he smiled faintly and sipped his wine. 

Rasputin gave Snape a sly look, blue eyes gleaming brightly in the shadows. "There are ways around it, you realise."

"Indeed?" Snape quirked an eyebrow, tilting his head. "And what might they be?"

Rasputin snorted. "Not likely I'll share those secrets." He drained his glass and smacked his lips. 

A sharp twinge in Draco's bladder made him frown, and he shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Snape looked at him, inquiring, and Draco pushed himself up, setting his glass aside. "I have to--" He caught himself. Polite company, after all. He pulled himself together, weaving only slightly. "The facilities?" he asked as proper as he could expect himself to be at the moment. 

He was rather pleased with himself. 

"Upstairs," Rasputin said, waving his glass vaguely in the direction of the staircase. Draco caught his glance at Osipenko, lying sprawled at the foot of Pitirim's lounge. The man blinked slowly and yawned. 

Curious. 

Draco only fell up the stairs once, which he counted practically sober given the amount of wine he'd ingested. The bathroom was small, a toilet and a sink, and it was oddly old-fashioned, although Draco supposed that it made perfect sense for 1916. 

He jerked the chain, and was just fastening his trousers when the door opened behind him. 

Osipenko smiled at him, his shadowed face reflected in the speckled mirror over the sink. Draco turned around. 

"What are you—" 

He was cut off by Osipenko's mouth, tongue pressing against his, and he couldn't breathe. He pushed at the other man, his fingers digging into Osipenko's arms, but Osipenko grabbed his wrists, jerking them up and pressing them to the mirror with one hand. 

"Stay still," Osipenko murmured against Draco's throat. "God, you're a pretty one." 

The edge of the sink dug sharply into Draco's narrow hips, and he pulled his head away, trying to avoid the kiss. His hair caught on the button of Osipenko's cuff, and a twist of pain crinkled his eyes. 

"Stop," Draco gasped out, and Osipenko fumbled with Draco's half-fastened trousers. 

"Just a little touch," he said, his breath gusting warmly against Draco's ear. "You'll like it, zolotoi." His fingers slid over Draco's cock, and Draco flinched, his hips slamming back against the sink. 

"Don't--" 

And then Osipenko flew across the bathroom, knocking his head sharply against a cabinet set into the wall. He sank to the floor, eyes closed. 

Snape stood in the doorway, wand raised, jaw tight. "Are you all right?" 

Draco pulled his trousers together, his hands shaking as he fastened the buttons. "I think so." He pushed his hair back from his eyes. His wrists ached. "I didn't want--" 

"I know." Snape took Draco's hand and his fingers were gentle and cool as he pushed Draco's sleeve up. Bruises ringed his wrists already, faint pink-purple marks against his pale skin. Snape's mouth thinned. "Did he--" He broke off, his cheeks flushing. 

"No." Draco pulled away, tugging his sleeves down. "I could have taken care of him myself, you realise." Embarrassment flooded through him. Of all situations to be caught in-- He bit his lip. 

Snape snorted and a rush of humiliated anger twisted through Draco. He pushed past the professor, not even caring that his slight stumble knocked Snape into the doorknob. "I'm going back to the palace," he snapped. "If you want to stay in this hellhole--" 

"I don't think I'd call it that." Rasputin leaned drunkenly against the banister at the landing, and Draco had the sudden urge to push him over, watching his body tumble down the stairs, broken and bleeding. 

He twisted his fingers in the sides of his trousers. 

"Your hospitality leaves a great deal to be desired," Snape said, stepping out of the bathroom. 

Rasputin shrugged. "The fool is not my responsibility." 

"I would make him so," Snape said, and his voice dropped dangerously low in a manner Draco knew all too well. He pressed back against the wall, watching the two men, unease twisting up his spine. 

"And why so?" Rasputin looked amused, and he tapped his fingers lightly against the banister. Draco could see the grip of his wand peeking from his trouser pocket, light glinting dully off the smooth curve of yew. 

The stairs creaked beneath Snape's feet. "I think you know," he said, looking directly at Rasputin, and there was a moment's silence before he brushed past, his hand catching Draco's elbow. "We're leaving," he said, and Draco caught the banister as he stumbled down the staircase. 

Rasputin stood at the landing, and Draco could feel him watching them. At the foot of the stairs, he glanced back up. 

Rasputin smiled down at him, the unnerving brightness of his gaze holding Draco's for a moment. He lingered, his hand resting lightly on the ball of the newel post, and he could feel the press into his mind, the smooth slide of thoughts before he could stop them, pictures swirling to the surface--wants and needs and secrets he'd never spoken of, never allowed himself to consider--and with a ragged gasp, Draco jerked back, stumbling against the wall as he shoved him out. 

"Draco?" Snape looked back at him, pulling their coats from the pile of furs tossed in the corner of the foyer, and Draco hurried across the marble hall, Rasputin's laughter echoing in the silence. 

 

****

Chapter Ten

Tonks was tired.

They'd searched two-thirds of England now, in all the usual places, and still no sign of Snape or Malfoy. And with each day that passed, Harry became more tense, more angry. Even Ron and Hermione were having difficulty calming him.

Tonks wasn't entirely certain she could blame him. Whatever Minerva might say, she wanted justice as well. Dumbledore deserved it.

Remus rubbed her shoulders and she leaned back into the touch for a moment as they waited for the next available Floo. Merlin, the Ministry network was bloody slow. "I'm starving," he said. "I don't suppose your mother'll have any of those currant scones on hand?" 

"Maybe." She smiled up at him. "I'd rather a bath first. A long one." 

He tugged at her fringe, pulling pink wisps over her eyes. "Think I can join in?" 

"Only if you really want Dad to hex your bollocks off." She stepped into the Floo. "Meet you on the other side." 

A flash and a rattle, and she ended up on the floor of her parents' foyer. Really, Dad needed to give in and call the Network on that connection. 

Remus tumbled out after her, a tangle of legs and brown cotton robe. He sat up, rubbing his hip. 

"Sorry," Tonks said, helping him to his feet. "Dad keeps trying to fix that. Which means he sticks his head in the Floo and _hmmms_ a lot." 

Remus chuckled. "It's not any worse than some of the Hogwarts hearths were, believe me." 

Tonks hung her cloak on one of the hooks next to the door. "Wotcher, Mum," she called, as they headed into the sitting room, Remus trailing after her. 

She stopped abruptly. 

"What--" Remus caught himself just before he fell into her. 

"Aunt Narcissa." Tonks gave her mother a confused look. The last time her mother's sister had been in this house, Tonks had still been playing Auror-and-Death-Eater with rubber wands and now her aunt was curled, barefooted, in the corner of the chesterfield, biting her thumbnail. 

With one of Dad's old—-but highly prized—-Hancock albums playing on the turntable in the corner. 

Andromeda stood, her green robe swinging gracefully around her ankles. Tonks had always envied her mother's easy elegance. "Cissy's staying with us for a time." She gave her daughter an even look, cutting off Tonks' protest before she began, and Tonks was gobsmacked to see her mother run a hand gently over her aunt's shoulder. 

Remus coughed softly. 

"And here I've not even put the kettle on yet," Andromeda said. "Nymphadora, do help me. Remus, dear, you'll have a seat? I think perhaps Narcissa could use some company besides myself." 

"Certainly." Remus gave Tonks a helpless look and she shook her head. He sat down on the edge of the couch, his wariness apparent. "Mrs Malfoy." 

Her aunt ignored him, reaching instead for the Prophet Andromeda had set aside. 

Tonks held her tongue until the kitchen door swung behind them. "Have you lost your mind, Mum? Aunt Narcissa? Do you know what the Ministry will say? What the Order'll think?" 

Andromeda slammed the kettle on the stove, lighting it with a flick of her wand. "She's my sister, Nymphadora. If you think I'll close my door to her in her condition--" She broke off, reaching for a basket of currant scones baked earlier in the day. She set a few on a plate, her hands shaking. "Push your fringe back, dear. It's in your eyes again. Really, you know, you should shorten it a bit. It suits you better." 

Tonks ran a hand through her bright pink hair. "Mum." 

"It's not a subject under discussion, Nymphadora." Andromeda gave her an even look, one Tonks recognised as a sign that her mother was nearing the end of her patience, as she reached for the tin of Darjeeling. 

"I'll have to tell the Order," Tonks said unhappily. "They've been looking for Aunt Narcissa in case Draco contacts her." 

"You'll do what you need to do then." Andromeda measured the tea leaves out carefully. 

Tonks leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. "They could take her in to Azkaban, Mum." 

Andromeda set the tin aside, capping it tightly. "Not if I've anything to say about it." 

"You don't have to." 

"I don't know what you expect," Andromeda said, quietly. "She's my sister, and if I'm the only one who can protect her, then I will." She met her daughter's eyes then, and Tonks was taken aback at the brightness in her gaze. Mum never cried. Ever. "She's already been punished, Nymphadora. More than I think you can realise right now. Tell them to leave her be." 

Tonks looked away. The kettle whistled, a loud and cheerful burst of Danny Boy in the silence. 

Her mother handed her the plate of scones. "Take these in. I'll bring the tea in a moment." 

Tonks sighed and took the scones. "I'd best rescue Remus anyway," she muttered. 

There were times she despaired of Mum, really. Maybe Dad was right and it was just the Black in her. 

Maybe. 

She kicked the kitchen door open, plastering on a polite smile. 

If nothing else, perhaps a spot of tea and a few scones might net information for the Order. 

It was worth a try, at least, she supposed.

\--------------------

Maria Grigorievna looked up from her writing, the shadows from the lamp stretching dark against the paper. The quill feather brushed the back of her hand, and a drop of black ink dripped onto her thumb.

Her father sat in the corner, a bottle of vodka in his hand, staring into the fire flickering in the hearth. 

He hadn't been himself for months, not since he'd discovered the Troika's plot to murder him. Khvostov, Beletsky and Komissarov had been his colleagues, his friends even, or so it'd seemed. 

The whole of Petrograd hated him now. 

Maria didn't understand it. 

Perhaps he wasn't the best father, or the kindest, particularly when he was drunk, and there were moments when he looked at her as if she were a complete stranger. Still, he took care of her and Varva, watching after them closely, insisting upon their education, tutoring them in magic and spells and potions when the Muggles weren't looking, and he sent money regularly home to Mama and Dmitry in Pokrovskoe for the care of the farm. 

And she could remember how he'd been years ago—how he had laughed and played with her and Mitia in the Siberian snow and how Mama had smiled from the doorway, watching them with Varva in her arms, her little pink nose barely visible over the scarves swathed around her neck. 

Maria missed those days. 

Before He'd come about—and for all that Papa'd promised Him for a moment's power, for the comfort of wealth and privilege, nothing had been worth losing Pokrovskoe. 

Nothing. 

"Papa?" she asked hesitantly, and he shifted in his chair with a grunt, taking another swig of vodka. 

"Read the last paragraph back." 

Maria bit her lip; the parchment shook in her hand. "Tsar of the land of Russia, when you hear the sound of the bell telling you that Grigori has been killed, you must know this: if your relatives carried out the murder, then not one of your family—-that is none of your children or relatives—-will remain alive for more than two years." 

She looked up, hesitating, and her father gestured in irritation. Maria drew a deep breath. "They will be killed by the Russian people. I am leaving and feel in me the divine command to tell the Russian tsar how he must live after my departure. You should be concerned for your salvation and tell your relatives that I paid for them with my life. They will kill me. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family." 

The room was silent, save for the crack of a log breaking apart in the fire. 

Rasputin stumbled out of the chair, lurching towards his daughter. He caught himself on the edge of the desk before he fell on her. "Quill." 

Maria handed it over and her father signed his name with a flourish. "Have Simanovich deliver it to the tsaritsa by Thursday." 

"It's not true, is it?" Maria sprinkled sand across the ink, drying it before she folded the letter into thirds, tucking it in an envelope. Her hands shook. "You're not going to be killed, Papa--" 

Her father caught her chin, tilting her head back, and for the first time in a very long while the eyes that looked down at her were gentle. He rubbed his thumb across her jaw. "Whatever happens is for the best, little one. Trust me. You always have, yes?" 

She could feel the warmth of him seeping into her mind in that way of his, and her eyes brimmed with tears. "Yes," she murmured, and he kissed the top of her head, the way he had each night when she was little, before they took the flat in St Petersburg away from Mama and the farm and the snows of Siberia, before the Old One joined them. She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. 

"Go to bed," he said, reaching for the bottle again, and she gathered up her papers, rising. 

Maria turned back at the door. Her father leaned against the hearth, fingers gripping the carved mantel, and in the mirror above she saw his face reflected, mouth tight, eyes gleaming red in the fire. 

"You owe me, you old bastard," he whispered, and the bile in his voice chilled her almost as much as the hated laugh that echoed in the silent library. 

She fled, her heart pounding.

\--------------------

For some inexplicable reason, the Grand Duchesses were restless this afternoon, Severus noted in annoyance. He'd already been forced to shout at Olga Nicholaievna twice, nearly sending her into tears, and only Merlin above was keeping him from casting Petrificus on the youngest merely to keep her from twisting about.

Slamming Shelley's sonnets down--Severus had given up on Shakespeare--he glared at the four of them, and Tatiana pinched Anastasia under the table, causing her to squeak angrily. 

"Do you mind—" He was cut off by the sound of feet running down the hall outside the classroom, raised voices echoing after. 

The girls exchanged glances, and then they were out of their seats in a swirl of black wool skirts and jumpers. 

"Alexei," Maria explained as they hurried into the hall, and that was all it took to send Severus after them. 

The tsarevich was taught by himself, his subjects tailored especially for the future ruler. Severus knew, however, that there were other reasons for keeping him separate. Primarily his illness. 

The great-grandson of Queen Victoria of England had inherited the Muggle royals' appalling tendency towards bleeding to death from the smallest bruise. Inbreeding, Severus thought with a snort. At least wizards knew to plan for such happenstances. God knew Narcissa and Lucius had taken every precaution possible with Draco's conception. 

"Out of the way," Severus snapped at the maids gathered around the door to Alexei's classroom. Gilliard knelt next to the boy, Alexei's head cradled on his knees. Sascha bent over them both, her hands fluttering as she shouted at Utkina to go for the doctor. Derevenko was already out the door. 

The boy was pale, his dark blond hair falling over his cheek. His lip was between his teeth and he was trying hard not to whimper. 

"What happened?" Severus crouched beside Gilliard and began unbuttoning the tsarevich's coat. 

Gilliard looked up at him then, and Severus could see the shock in his eyes. "He tripped over his chair. I couldn't catch him in time—-I was across the room-—" 

"Don't blame yourself." Severus pulled Alexei's coat open, jerking his shirt up. The swelling was already obvious, a lump of blood the size of a Snitch gathering under the skin. "Damnation," he muttered and the boy's fists clenched as Severus pressed lightly against the bulge. 

He looked up, his gaze fixing on Anastasia. The girl looked terrified, chewing a lock of her blonde-brown hair. "Find Draco," he said. "Tell him to bring the green phial from my room. Third drawer. He'll know how to unward-—to unlock it." She looked at him blankly. "Nastya," he snapped, _"go."_

She ran. 

"The doctor will be here soon," Sascha said, dropping to her knees next to him, her skirts billowing out. Her eyes were bright. "He'll be all right. He will." She touched Gilliard's hand gently; his fingers curled around hers. 

Severus ran his hand over Alexei's side. The swelling had already gone from Snitch-sized to fist-sized. The tsarevich watched him, breathing out heavily. 

"What are you going to do?" the boy asked softly, and Severus looked at him. "Father Grigori prays with his crucifix..." 

A snort. "Father Grigori's a damned fool." There was a stunned silence for a moment, Gilliard and Sascha exchanging glances over the boy. 

"He's not." Alexei struggled to sit up, and Severus pushed him back down firmly. 

"Unless you wish to kill yourself, I would suggest you remain still." 

The tsarevich glared at him. 

"Better," Severus said calmly. "Stay angry, and when you're well again, I'll allow you the opportunity to shout. I should inform you that is a rare gift, one I seldom allow anyone. It would be in very bad form to die before you make use of it." 

Severus could have sworn Alexei's mouth twitched. 

And then Draco was at his side, pressing a cool phial into his hand. "Is this the right one?" he asked softly, his breath stirring Severus's lank hair. 

"Yes." Severus uncorked the phial. "Lift his head, Pierre." 

The tutor did so. 

It took two swallows to get the potion down Alexei's throat, and the tsarevich was gagging by the time he finished. Severus supposed it would be a poor idea to inform him that the base of the brew was an infusion of hellebore in dragon's blood. 

The doctor arrived, bag in hand. "Get back," he said gruffly, and Severus's jaw tightened. 

"I think not." 

He pushed the tsarevich's shirt aside. The swelling was disappearing, purple mottling fading back into the smooth, white skin. 

The doctor stared at him. 

"A miracle," Severus said smoothly. "You do believe in those in this house, do you not?" 

He lifted Alexei, standing wearily, his back twinging at the unexpected weight. The boy needed rest. Calm. Enough time for the potion to settle in his system. 

The cluster of servants and Grand Duchesses silently broke apart as he walked past, Draco trailing behind him. 

Anastasia watched them go, her face thoughtful. 

The girl was far too clever, Severus thought, a flash of anger twisting through him as Draco glanced back at her and smiled. 

Ridiculous of him to be jealous. 

Utterly. 

He swept down the hall, mouth tight, the tsar's son curled in his arms, the boy's mother hurrying towards them, hand pressed to her mouth.

\--------------------

It was dark outside when Severus returned to his room.

Dealing with the tsaritsa's terror had been draining, as had the ensuing argument with the doctor, stopped only by the tsarevich's weak command. He'd insisted that Severus stay with him until he fell asleep, and the tsaritsa had reluctantly agreed, much to Severus's annoyance. 

The boy had demanded that he be read to. For hours. 

Damned wretched brat. 

Draco sat on the bed, book in hand, bare feet curled up underneath him, and Severus stopped in the doorway, thoughts in his head that he knew bloody well shouldn't be there. 

"Get off my bed," Severus snapped, unbuttoning his coat. He tossed it aside. 

Draco set his book down and pulled his knees to his chest, ignoring Severus's request. Typical. "There's food." He nodded towards a covered plate on the tiny desk next to the window. 

Severus lifted the lid. Cold beef and cheese, bread and a pot of tea that Draco had set a warming charm on. 

He poured a cup. 

Snow fell against the window, thick and white against the black night. Severus sat, reaching for a piece of bread, a slice of beef. 

"He has haemophilia, doesn't he?" Draco asked, and Severus nodded, chewing slowly. "Is he going to die?" 

Severus swallowed, then took a sip of tea. It was hot and strong and—thank _God_ \--Earl Grey. He was getting damned tired of Russian tea. "Everyone dies, Draco." 

"You know what I mean." Draco rubbed his thumb across his knee, twisting his wool trousers. "You knew he needed that potion. You brought it specifically for him. He's the boy they were for. You _knew._ " He looked up at Severus. "So you might as well say." 

"No," Severus said shortly. "He doesn't bleed to death in that manner." 

"That's not really an answer." Draco was silent for a moment, and Severus leaned back in his chair, tearing off another piece of bread. 

"Nastya says that there are revolutionaries out there." Draco gestured vaguely towards the window. "Ones that don't care for her father. She's afraid of them. They all are, the girls at least." 

Severus set his bread aside with a sigh. "What exactly are you asking me, Draco?" 

The boy looked up at him, chewing on his fingernail, and his grey eyes were troubled. "They die, don't they? All of them. You told me not to get attached, and that's why you said that. Because they die." 

Severus looked away. "Yes." 

"I didn't think there was a Muggle tsar in our time," Draco said quietly. "How do they die?" 

"The Bolsheviks kill them." Severus sighed, and his hands curled around the warm cup of tea. "There's a revolt in a year. The people are tired of the war and of being hungry and poor. They're dying by the score, and the nobles, much like the bloody fools in France a hundred and forty years past, do not seem to give a damn. After all, they're only peasants, yes?" 

He sighed and sipped his tea, staring out the window, watching the snow pile up against the panes. "Nicholas abdicates in favour of his brother Mikhail. Idiotic idea, but he feels its his only option to protect the country. Mikhail Aleksandrovich abdicates himself one day later. The Red Army--the Bolsheviks--begin fighting with the White Army--the royalists--and the tsar and his immediate family, along with a few servants such as Gilliard and Sascha, are put under house arrest. Some are allowed to leave eventually. Forced to, I should say. The tsar's family is not." 

"And?" Draco's fingers twisted in the cuffs of his trousers. 

Severus set his cup aside. "In the early morning of the seventeenth of July, 1918, the imperial family was executed by firing squad. On Lenin's orders, some say, hidden behind the auspices of the Ural Regional Soviet." 

Draco took a shaky breath. "I see." He looked up at Snape. "Did you know Anastasia's birthday's the day before mine? It's odd the things that come out of her mouth sometimes. It's like talking to Pansy..." He wrapped his arms around himself and fell silent. 

"You can't save them, Draco." Severus ran a finger around the rim of his teacup. "They're supposed to die." He hesitated. "She's _not_ Pansy." 

"I know." Draco slid to the edge of the bed. "I'm tired, I think. I should go to bed." He stopped at the door. "They're grateful, you know. The girls are. They don't know what you did, and I didn't tell them anything, so don't give me that look. It's just--they're glad. He's their little brother after all." He rubbed his hands over his elbows. "They're funny about that. Family. Stupid twats, really." 

"Muggles can be that way." Severus took a sip of tea. "Sentimental fools." 

Draco nodded, his hair falling into his eyes. "Good night, Professor." 

The door clicked shut behind him. 

Severus pushed his plate away, flicking the lights off with a sweep of his wand. He stared out the window, mind spinning to cold childhood winters spent huddled next to the radiator, doing all he could not to hear the shouts of his parents downstairs. 

Not all Muggles were maudlin about blood. 

Snow drifted steadily down, frost etching elaborate patterns against the fogged panes, and the fire had nearly died into black embers before he roused himself again, undressing in the cold, shivering as he slid underneath the down comforter. 

He turned his face to the wall and sighed. 

 

****

Chapter Eleven

Severus had been expecting him.

Word traveled quickly through the staff, and he had known damn well that Vyrubova would pass details of the incident along once the tsaritsa had confided in her. 

He had counted on it, in fact. 

However, the bastard might have picked a more convenient time. 

"We'll speak, Snape," Rasputin said from the doorway of the Grand Duchesses' classroom, and his voice was tight, harsh. The girls exchanged glances, their nervousness clear. 

Severus closed the text from which he had been reading. Shelley again, and he despised the idiotic man. "The Grand Duchesses are in lessons," he began, only to be cut off by a growl from the other wizard. 

"Now." 

The reek of wine drifted across the room. 

Severus frowned and glanced at the girls, who were watching them with open curiousity. "You are dismissed. I expect you to continue the reading in your chambers, _Anastasia Nicholaievna._ " Severus gave the youngest a pointed look, and she flushed, rolling her eyes. He set the book down. "Out." 

The girls gathered their books and papers and scurried past the staretz, dipping their heads respectfully. Severus barely kept from snorting. Ridiculous Muggles. 

Rasputin stepped into the classroom, looking oddly out-of-place among the cherry and glass book cabinets and marble busts of Greek philosophers and dramatists. Severus closed his portfolio of notes, fastening the buckle. "What is it you wish, Grigori?" 

Severus looked up to find Rasputin's wand pointed between his eyes. 

Well. 

This was awkward. Not unexpected, but still. Awkward. 

It was far too early to kill the man.

\--------------------

Something wasn't right. Anastasia wasn't certain what it was, but there'd been tension between Father Grigori and Snape and there was something about it that made her uneasy.

She didn't entirely know why. Someone on staff was always irritated with Father Grigori anyway. Sascha wouldn't even be in the same room with him. 

But this was different. 

"Nastenka, come on." 

Anastasia looked back at Maria, standing in the middle of the hallway, exasperated. "I think I left something—-" 

Maria sighed. "You're going to get in trouble." 

"Go on." Anastasia scowled. She loved Mashka, really, she did, but there were times when she was entirely impossible. 

"Fine. But don't come complaining to me if you end up with extra reading." Maria flounced off, her skirt swirling around her ankles. Anastasia rolled her eyes. 

She was quiet as she crept back to the classroom. The door was open, just enough for her to peek around the edge. 

Her breath caught. 

They were standing only feet apart, and they both had odd, narrow sticks in their hands. At first she thought perhaps it was all a joke, and then Father Grigori swept his stick to the side and a bright burst of yellow-gold light exploded from the end, slamming into the wall over Snape's shoulder. 

Mother wouldn't like the burn mark it left on the olive wallpaper. 

"Someone had to do something for the boy," Snape hissed, and a burst of blue light came from his stick, catching Father Grigori in the shoulder. He grabbed at his coat, swearing at the smoke coming between his fingers. 

"You bastard," Father Grigori spat out. "You won't have my place—-you never will. Only _I_ can save him—-" 

"And where were you, Grigori?" Snape circled him, his fingers tightening on his stick. "In the bottom of a bottle or rutting between a whore's legs?" 

Father Grigori lunged forward with a snarl, and his stick slapped across Snape's cheek, leaving behind an angry red burn. Anastasia breathed in sharply, biting her knuckle. And then the staretz's eyes gleamed, the piercing blue fading into a blood crimson that chilled Anastasia, and the laugh that came from his mouth was the most terrifying sound she'd ever heard. 

"Bend your knee," Father Grigori said, in that strange, harsh whisper, and Snape bared his teeth, raising his stick higher. _"Now,"_ the staretz snapped, and with a twist of his hand--and Anastasia couldn't even see how he'd touched Snape--her tutor fell to his knees, his face twisted in pain. She could have sworn he looked her way. 

Father Grigori smiled, a thin cruel twist of his mouth. "Crucio," he murmured. 

Snape tumbled to the ground with an anguished cry, barely catching himself on one hand before his face hit the carpet. He trembled and his face, when he raised it, was pale and drawn, the muscles in his neck corded. "You'll have to do better, you bastard," he choked out, and Father Grigori's stick flicked lazily towards him again. 

Anastasia covered her ears against his screams, her hands shaking. She had to do something—-anything-—find someone-- 

_Draco._ The name burst into her mind inexplicably. 

She ran.

\--------------------

Draco was in the staff dining room, sharing a pot of tea with Sascha. It was a habit they'd grown into over the past week, during the Grand Duchesses' lessons with Snape, and Gilliard had joined them once or twice.

He rather liked it, actually. Sascha amused him with her gossip about the rest of the staff—-Sobolev had a drinking problem it seemed, and Father Alexandre liked the novices a bit too much—-as well as the family. 

Her disapproval of the tsaritsa's patronage of Grigori Efimovich fascinated him. She rarely spoke of it, but her silence was more damning than words. 

"Not a good man," she'd say of the staretz, lifting her teacup. "Stay away from him." 

Draco held to the hope that she would, eventually, tell him who would like the man dead.

He had just poured another cup and was reaching for the sugar tongs when Anastasia burst in, out of breath. 

"Nastenka," Sascha scolded. "You're not to be here—-" 

Anastasia shook her head, her shoulders heaving. "Snape," she gasped out, and Draco dropped the tongs immediately. 

"What's wrong?" He was already out of his seat and halfway to the door. 

"I don't know," she said, eyes wide. "He was with Father Grigori and they were arguing and then—-he did something to the professor and I don't know what it was but I think it hurt him-—" 

"Stay here," Draco snapped. "For God's sake, stay here." 

He raced down the hall, not caring if they were behind him or not. It didn't matter. All that he cared about was that Snape was all right, that he wasn't hurt. What would he do if he was—-he pushed the thought out of his mind. Impossible. Utterly impossible. 

He threw the door of the classroom open. "What are you doing?" 

Rasputin was crouched over Snape's body, wand pressed to his temple. Snape was shaking, trying to pull himself up in vain. "Get out of here, boy," the staretz snapped. "This doesn't concern you." 

"I rather think it does-—" Draco broke off at the gleam of red eyes turned on him. He drew up short, his fists clenched. He licked his bottom lip, fear shivering through him. He wasn't brave. He knew that. If anything he was one of the biggest cowards he knew. But this was Snape. _His_ Snape. He drew a ragged breath. "Get away from him." 

The staretz snapped at him, a sharp click of yellowed teeth. "I have no argument with you, boy." His eyes glittered at Draco. "But if you want him alive, I would-—" 

Draco didn't stop to think. He couldn't. If he did, he'd be too afraid—-and his wand was in his hand, pointed at Rasputin. "I said get away from him." 

"It's not just want, is it?" Rasputin watched him with those too-bright eyes, the redness twisting into blue, and Draco slammed his mind shut as quickly as he could before he felt that sharp press again. Rasputin laughed. "You little fool." 

Draco's jaw tightened, and he felt his cheeks burn. "Are you deaf?" 

"Merely tired of your game." Rasputin turned his wand on Draco. 

"Don't—-" Snape reached for his arm, weakly, but the clatter of footsteps outside the hallway caught the staretz's attention and he swore and stood. 

With a sharp crack, he was gone, just as Anastasia and Sascha burst into the room, Gilliard behind them. 

"What happened—-where-—" Gilliard looked around. "He was here?" 

"Gone," Snape choked out, and Draco was next to him, helping him sit up. Snape was pale-—too pale-—and he couldn't stop shaking. 

"Cruciatus," Draco whispered and Snape nodded, closing his eyes. 

Draco pulled Snape against him. "I need a blanket." Snape's trembling terrified him. It wasn't that he hadn't seen Cruciatus. It wasn't that he hadn't experienced it himself. But this was Snape. _Snape._ Who could handle anything. Who could fix anything. 

Except this. 

Anastasia dropped to her knees next to him. "Are you all right?" She touched Snape's face lightly, and Draco was startled that Snape didn't snap at her. Instead he opened his eyes, looking at the Grand Duchess for a long moment. 

"You're a damned stupid little girl," he said faintly, "but thank you." 

She smiled at him, and he leaned back against Draco with a sigh, his head falling against Draco's shoulders. 

Draco held him tightly. 

It was the only thing he could do.

\--------------------

"You're certain?" Minerva asked. She handed Tonks a glass of whisky. It was Albus's; she'd found the decanter in one of the cabinets two days past. There was something bittersweetly comforting about the curve of the crystal against her hand, knowing that he was the last to have touched it.

Tonks sipped the whisky. "There's no reason for her to lie." She twisted the glass in her hand. "I'm not entirely certain she can, really. Her mind—-" She broke off, biting her lip. 

Minerva sat behind Albus's desk. She didn't think it would ever truly be hers. She smoothed a palm over the blotter. There were still notes jotted across it in Albus's scrawl. "So I understand." She looked at Tonks over her spectacles. "Leeds, however?"

"That's what Aunt Narcissa said." Tonks shifted in her chair and ran a hand through her hair. The pink spikes stood up wildly. "It took nearly an hour to get it from her, but it seems as if Snape communicated with her that night after—-" She looked away. "From what she said, they went to someone in his family." 

Minerva pressed a knuckle to her mouth and sighed. "Take Kingsley and Hestia. Severus's mother was a Prince." 

"Right then." Tonks set her glass on the desk and stood. "I'll have the MLE run the possible addresses."

"Nymphadora." 

Tonks looked back, eyebrow raised. 

Minerva pushed her spectacles up. "You should check Muggle records as well." She hesitated. Somehow, oddly, it seemed a betrayal. Severus had kept his parentage such a secret. "His father—-" 

"I know," Tonks said quietly. "Harry said." 

Minerva nodded. "Owl as soon as you discover anything." 

The door clicked shut behind the girl and Minerva pushed her chair back, walking over to the window, her glass of whisky clutched tight in one hand. 

Hogwarts was spread beneath her, towers and turrets and walkways. And across the wide stretch of green grass she could see the lake and the white marble tomb. Merlin, but Albus would have hated that damned thing. 

She choked back a painful gasp of laughter. 

"Oh, God, Albus," she murmured. "Tell me you didn't misjudge Severus." 

A snort behind her turned her head. Phineas Nigellus glared down at her from his frame. "You might try trusting him, you realise," he snapped, and Minerva wasn't entirely certain if he was referring to Albus or Severus. 

She lifted her glass to her mouth. 

Perhaps it didn't matter.

\--------------------

Severus glared at Draco. "If you think I intend to lie abed all day—-"

"I think you've just gone through Cruciatus," Draco snapped back at him. "And if you're fool enough to think yourself physically capable of returning to the classroom this afternoon, then be my guest. I think I'd rather like to see how far you actually make it down the hall before your legs give out." 

He was right. Severus knew it, and it rankled, not only because a mere slip of a boy was ordering him about in such an imperious manner, but also because Severus despised appearing weak. To anyone, and particularly to a Malfoy. 

To Draco.

It was incredibly annoying. 

Severus leaned back against the pillows and contented himself with scowling at the brat. If he _must_ be forced to lie here like a damned invalid, he had no intention of hiding his displeasure. 

Draco rolled his eyes. "It's not working." He handed Severus an ameliorative from his bag. "I'm immune." 

The potion was bitter, and Severus grimaced, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "You're a brat, is what you are." He handed Draco back the phial. He was in a viciously horrid mood-—his head pounded and his body ached, his hands still trembling slightly. "And if you _ever_ put yourself in such a position again—-" 

"Oh, do forgive me for saving your life." Draco poured a bit of water from the pitcher on the dresser into a wide porcelain bowl and rinsed the phial out. 

His thoroughness irritated Severus for some inexplicable reason. He ground his teeth together. "You did nothing of the sort. It was only Cruciatus." 

Draco slammed the phial onto the dressertop. "You are the most ungrateful bastard--" 

"I do beg your pardon?" Severus's brows drew together. Honestly. The boy was entirely too much at times. "You bloody little wretch. I'm quite certain you of all people are not calling _me_ ungrateful." 

The boy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like annoyance. It was enough to push Severus over the edge. He was tired, and he hurt, and the goddamned brat might have gotten himself killed, bursting in like that-- 

"Watch yourself, Mr Malfoy." Severus bared his teeth. "I would prefer not to be forced to hex your insolent arse." 

"Merlin." Draco threw his hands up. "I can't deal with you any longer. Not in this mood of yours. Do whatever you want." 

He slammed the door behind him, sending the icon of John the Benefactor rattling on the wall over the bed. Severus eyed it suspiciously until it settled. He slumped against the pillows. 

It was better if the boy was angry. 

Much better.

\--------------------

Draco sprawled across Anastasia's bed, a cigarette in hand, staring up at the butterflies and roses painted along the top of the grey walls lined with portraits and icons. Jemmy snuffled against his side, and Draco scratched the spaniel's ears absently. "Honestly, he's the most infuriating man." A camera clicked in front of him and he frowned, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. "Must you do that?"

"I like my photographs," Anastasia said calmly, looking down into the Brownie viewfinder, and her hair swung forward, nearly obscuring her face. It clicked again. She tossed her head, pushing her curls back behind one ear. "You might try smiling, you know." 

"I don't smile." Draco tapped his cigarette against a teacup, and the ash drifted into the dregs of the tea. Not quite the truth, but close enough. 

"Liar." Anastasia sat on the edge of the bed. She plucked the cigarette from his hand and took a drag. 

Draco sighed and looked at her. "Do you ever get out of this place? Go anywhere other than hospital?" 

Anastasia pulled her stockinged feet up onto the bed, tucking her skirt around her ankles. She handed him back the cig. "Not without an entire entourage." She looked away, and Draco thought a whisper of sadness drifted across her face. "Mama and Papa used to take us to the city rather often when we were younger, but people would crush around and the guards—well, they said it wasn't safe." 

"And now?" Draco sat up, horrified, stubbing out the cigarette and dropping it into the teacup. Jemmy yipped in annoyance and curled up against the pillow. "You never go off the palace grounds?"

"Not often." Anastasia shrugged. "To hospital, to church, on occasion to a party, but we're not allowed to attend many of those." 

"It's like you're in bloody prison." Draco couldn't imagine. To live so cloistered...something had to be done about that. Besides, if he didn't get out of this damned mausoleum himself he was going to kill someone. 

Most likely Snape. 

Anastasia chewed on her bottom lip. "It's not that bad." 

"It's not that good, either." Draco stood up and held out a hand. "Come on then." 

"What?" She let him pull her off the bed. "Where are we going?" 

"Anywhere." He handed her the boots she'd abandoned earlier; she shoved her feet in, skirts around her knees, and laced the boots tightly. 

"How do you expect to get off the grounds?" 

"I have my ways." Draco grinned at her sceptical look. "And bring that damned camera of yours." 

 

****

Chapter Twelve

Nevsky Prospekt stretched wide and busy from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the Admiralty with its pointed gold spire across the river from Vasilievsky Island. It was the main thoroughfare in Petrograd, and the avenue was loud and crowded with Muggles and horses and automobiles, its cobblestones hidden by a thick layer of snow and ice.

Draco leaned over the edge of the tram's top deck, watching the melee pass below in fascination. Muggles amused him, in their own pathetic ways. A woman carrying a child in a sling on her back argued with a corner vendor over a basket of wrinkled beets; a young boy barely missed being struck by an automobile, icicles dangling from its shiny black hood. 

"What's that?" He pointed towards a colourful sleigh drawn by three horses, its bells bright and melodic even over the roar of the street. The driver maneuvered the sleigh expertly between horses and automobiles and its occupants were nestled warmly beneath a pile of heavy furs. 

Anastasia propped her chin on her fist. Her hair was tucked beneath a heavy grey wool scarf and one of Draco's ushankas. A curl still escaped, the wind twisting it across her pink cheek. "A troika. When I was little Papa used to bring us down to watch them race on the Neva during winter." She smiled faintly. "I always thought the horses were so lovely." 

Draco snorted. "You're such a girl." 

"Don't be a bastard," she said, craning her head to watch the troika as they passed. "Or I'll not keep your secret." 

He eyed her. She'd been shaken when they'd Apparated, and he'd expected as much. It'd taken her a good quarter hour of nonstop questions and a half a samovar of tea before she'd finally calmed. 

Snape would be furious, he knew, but it was his own damned fault, Draco thought. After all, it wasn't as if she hadn't seen—-he shivered. He didn't even want to consider what could have been. 

And it wasn't as if it mattered that Nastya'd know anyway. She'd be dead in a year and a half. 

Draco looked away, his throat tightening. He didn't give a damn. He didn't. She was just a Muggle, really, and he barely knew her. He conversed with her only because she amused him when he was bored, that's all, and because she reminded him of Pansy and home. 

And he missed home so very much. 

Not that he'd ever say that to Snape, of course. 

Anastasia grabbed his arm. "Come on." 

"What—-" Draco stumbled down the steps of the tram after her. "Where are you going?" 

She pointed towards a huge, two-storey yellow building on the corner, stretching several blocks down Nevsky and Sadovaya, white arches and pillars gleaming in the sunlight. 

"Gostiny Dvor." Anastasia grinned at him, skirts up with a flash of white wool stockings as she picked her way across the snowy street. "I want to go shopping." 

Draco stared at her in horror. "You _have_ to be joking." 

The Grand Duchess was already across the street, waiting impatiently for him. His boots skidded across a patch of ice, nearly sending him into a wide, red-faced street vendor swaddled in a fraying coat. 

Forget furious. He'd be lucky if Snape left him alive. 

Draco sighed, annoyed. There were times when he could be a right twat.

\--------------------

Gostiny Dvor was comprised of ten streets enclosed in one building, each street packed with shops and vendors spanning both storeys.

It was Draco's version of hell. 

Not that he minded spending money. But there was a definite difference between being served tea at Twilfit and Tatting's when one went in for a fitting, and this...ungodly melee. 

Mother would be horrified. 

Muggles packed the narrow streets, thronging around shops selling food and furs, housewares and bolts of fabric. Vendors shouted back and forth, and bartering was the currency of choice. 

Draco curled his lip. Ridiculous. 

"Are we done yet?" he asked, looking back at Anastasia. She clutched a bag of sweets in one hand, her mouth sticky. 

She sucked on the hard caramel and blinked. "We've only gone through one street." She held the bag out to Draco. He pushed it away with a curl of his lip. Honestly. As if there were any Muggle sweet that could top Ice Mice. 

"Isn't that more than enough—-" he began, but Anastasia's eyes gleamed at something over his shoulder and she tucked her arm beneath his elbow and pulled him across the street, barely missing an old babushka carrying a large round loaf of black bread tucked under her arm. 

They slid between two narrow pillars, into a small nook packed with books and papers. Secondhand volumes spilled onto the floor, their worn, cracked leather spines stamped with titles in French and English, German and Russian. 

Anastasia ran a finger across one, with that look of rapture on her face that Draco'd seen only in the library at Hogwarts from the Ravenclaws. And Granger. 

"Oh, bloody wonderful," he muttered, and he shifted to one side to let a thin, bespectacled man pass. 

Draco contented himself with sorting through a small box of postcards around the corner, prints of various landmarks in Petrograd, and he wondered why Muggles even bothered. What was the point of pictures that didn't move? He snorted and tossed them back into the box. 

A photograph caught his eye and he pulled it out. Another postcard, this one a simple black and white print. 

Of the Imperial children. 

Several years back, of course, but still most definitely Anastasia. 

"Ten kopecks," a voice said at his elbow and Draco looked up to see the bookseller-—an oddly tiny man with dark eyes and a wide handlebar mustache. 

"I was just—-" Draco hesitated, and then dug in his pocket for the coins. 

They disappeared into the bookseller's apron. "Not much call for those lately." He coughed, rubbing the back of his wrist against his nose. "Unless for target practice-—" He chuckled, cocking his finger as if it were a gun, and Draco stepped back, oddly repulsed. 

"Here now, Seryozha." The bespectacled man looked up from the shelves. "Don't frighten the boy." 

"Should be," Seryozha snapped. "It's not a time to be in the middle, Alyosha. The boy ought to know that." 

"I'm not Russian." Draco slid the postcard in his pocket. "Your politics are your own—-" 

Seryozha leaned closer and Draco could smell the reek of onions on his breath. "What affects the proletariat, boy, affects the world." 

Draco scowled at him. "Not mine." 

Alyosha put a hand on Seryozha's arm, and the bookseller turned away with an annoyed grunt. Alyosha looked Draco up and down. "You're a wealthy one then." 

Draco shrugged, pulling his coat tighter. The postcard crackled in his pocket, folding against his wand. 

"Privileged," Alyosha murmured. "When around you families cannot afford to buy bread." 

Draco's eyes narrowed. "I said I'm not Russ--" 

Alyosha's fingers were twisted in Draco's collar before he could finish. He pushed Draco against the shelves, roughly. "You think I care? The money in your pocket could feed Seryozha's family for a week. Could pay the rent on my bloody flat." 

"Let him go." 

Draco closed his eyes. Damn it, could the girl not stay put five minutes? 

Anastasia glared at Alyosha, and he stared back at her in surprise before dropping his hand. Draco rubbed his throat. 

"Seryozha," Alyosha murmured, "we have a...guest." 

The bookseller turned the corner and his eyes widened. "A tsar's daughter? In Gostiny Dvor?" 

"The committee would be interested, don't you think?" Alyosha hadn't torn his gaze away from Anastasia. Draco didn't particularly like the look in his eye. 

At all. 

He curled his fingers around the wand in his pocket. 

"Nastya," he said softly. "Get out of here." 

She didn't stop to argue for once, her hair snapping against his shoulder as she whipped around, and he only took a moment to cast a Leg-locking Hex on the idiots before he followed her. 

They darted through the crowd, and he could hear the shouts after them, and they had just turned the corner when Anastasia skidded to a stop. 

"Oh, _hell,"_ she murmured as Draco slammed into her, nearly knocking her over. "We're in for it now." 

Anna Vyrubova walked towards them, her mouth tight, arms crossed. Two palace guards were behind her. 

Draco sighed. Bloody damn. 

This? Was _not_ good.

\--------------------

Severus left his audience with the tsar furious.

Not at Nicholas. Merlin knew the man had been as solicitous as possible in the matter. He'd even allowed Severus the privilege of punishing the idiot brat. 

Severus knew damned well it was entirely unnecessary for him to grant that request. Draco should be bloody thrilled that he'd not be spending the next few weeks—if not months—in a cell at Peter and Paul. 

The boy should have known better. 

He _did_ know better. Draco was not a fool, after all. 

A fact that Severus intended to remind him of. Immediately. 

And at great volume.

\--------------------

Draco glared up at him, and the stubborn lift of his jaw infuriated Severus more than anything.

"Nothing happened," he insisted with that petulant snarl of his that had set Severus' teeth on edge for the past year. 

"You damned _imbecile."_ Severus crossed his arms over his chest. Draco looked away, his hair falling into his face. "It has nothing to do with what did or did not occur. The point of the matter is that something _might_ have and the very last thing we need is to be forced to deal with a drastic change in history—" 

"Because of course, we've no intention of doing that ourselves," Draco snapped and Severus fought the urge to shake the bloody twit until his teeth rattled. 

"You would be well-advised, Mr Malfoy," he ground out, his fists clenching at his sides, "to remember your place. In all ways." 

"Or what?" Draco turned angry eyes on him. "What will you do?" 

Severus's mouth thinned. 

"Nothing," Draco snarled. "You won't do anything to me because there's nothing to be done. What are you going to do, beat me? If you think I'll let you touch me--" 

"You arrogant little _sod-—"_ Severus exploded, his hand striking hard across the boy's face, knocking Draco across the room before he could stop himself. 

Draco crashed into the dresser, the sharp corner catching his shoulder, ripping his linen shirt and the skin beneath, and blood seeped across his sleeve. He stared at Severus, his fingers curling around his shoulder. 

His cheek was red, the imprint of Severus's fingers standing out against his pale skin. 

"I despise you," Draco choked out, and Severus was shaking, memories of his father's heavy fists twisting through his mind. 

He couldn't—-he wouldn't—-he tried to step towards Draco, but the boy flinched away, his fingers sticky with blood. 

"Get away from me," Draco said coldly, and Severus staggered back, his hands falling to his sides. 

Draco slammed the door behind him, and Severus sank onto the bed, staring down at his clasped hands, palm still stinging, his father's sodden voice echoing in his ears. 

_Wretched freak. Bastard. Abomination. Mistake._

Severus stood up abruptly. 

Ridiculous. He didn't flinch at casting Cruciatus on a man, had never given pause even once at eviscerating his students verbally. Merlin knew the damned Gryffindors deserved it. But to strike _Draco_ in a blind rage--to turn into his father, lashing out at a child—-

And then he stopped, staring out the window at the snow flurries twisting against the dark grey-green of the Siberian firs. 

Not a child. That was the point of the matter, wasn't it? It wasn't anger merely for the boy's foolishness. He'd overlooked so much of Draco's actions in the past year. 

Severus's fingers twisted in the wool of his jacket. 

He was jealous. Viciously, bitterly, angrily jealous. 

Of that damned girl. 

Severus leaned his head against the cold windowpane. Merlin's _tit._ He was utterly buggered.

\--------------------

Draco twisted the Portkey between his fingers, watching as the late afternoon sunlight glinted off the carved silver. He wondered where the brooch would take him, should he activate it. A warm island, perhaps. A speck of green deep within the Mediterranean. Or perhaps his great-grandfather's Manor, with its bright fires and cosy velvet lounges that were brilliant to sprawl across on a snowy evening, Quidditch Weekly in hand.

Anywhere but the ice-covered roof of this damned palace, tucked beneath an overhang, flurries of snow dancing in the wind around him. 

He pulled the fur-lined blanket closer around his shoulders, blinking hard. He refused to cry. Absolutely. Bad enough that Potter'd caught him doing that once—he looked up sharply at the echo of footsteps across the parapet. 

Anastasia's head peeked over a ledge, followed soon by the rest of her as she crawled over, coat swinging against her knees. "Sascha said you came up here." She shivered, rubbing her mittened palms over her elbows. "It's cold." 

"Doesn't matter." Draco shrugged. "I didn't particularly want to be in the palace." 

"I'll be in trouble if they find out I'm not in my room. Papa's already shouted at me twice." She sat next to Draco, pulling at the blanket. He reluctantly let her slide in beneath it, curling up by his side. She sighed. "Mashka'll keep them out for a while, though. She promised." 

Draco stared blankly into the snow. His cheek and shoulder ached. He hadn't felt this empty in weeks. Not since they'd been here. 

It wasn't fair. 

"You should be here in June," Anastasia said, tucking her knees up to her chin. "When the White Nights happen, and the sky never grows darker than a pale grey. It's the best way to celebrate my birthday." She smiled faintly. "Our birthdays."

"I won't be," Draco said dully. "Not if I can help it."

Anastasia touched his bruised cheek and he flinched. "What happened?" 

"Nothing." Draco's fingers tightened on the Portkey; the curve of the brooch bit into his skin. 

She studied him silently for a moment. "Did he hit you?" she asked finally, voice soft. 

"I said nothing happened," Draco snapped. "So shut it." 

Anastasia's mouth pursed and it was so like Pansy's that Draco wanted to shove her away, wanted to shout at her, to tell her to sod off and leave him be—he turned his head, his throat tight. 

The wind ruffled his hair, bright and cold against his bruised skin. 

"You're in love with him," Anastasia blurted out and Draco looked at her in horror. 

_"What?"_

Her face was red, but she met his eyes evenly. "It's not like I don't know about those sorts of things. There are some courtiers-—" She shifted uneasily. "Michael Andronnikov, for one," she said in a rush. "I've heard what they say—" 

Draco open and closed his mouth. In love. With—-Merlin, _no._ "You're mad." 

Anastasia chewed her bottom lip, twisting her hair around one fingers. "I don't think I am." She looked up at Draco from underneath her fringe. "You look at him sometimes the way Maria looked at Kolya before he was sent back to the front. And she was utterly mad about him. Still is." 

"I'm _not_ in love with Snape," Draco said firmly, and he almost believed it himself. He pulled his knees up to his chest. 

Anastasia's hand settled on his. "I won't tell anyone." 

"There's nothing to tell." Draco's voice cracked and he hated himself for it, especially when she turned those sympathetic blue eyes on him. He dipped his head, and his hair swung forward, brushing against his cheek. "Just leave off, will you?" 

They sat in silence, watching the snow swirl lightly around them. 

Draco had never felt so alone in his life. 

 

****

Chapter Thirteen

It was raining again when Richard ambled up the walk towards the house. Bloody Yorkshire weather. He turned up the collar of his jacket, hunching his shoulders as he tightened his grip on his sack of groceries.

A cat watched him from under the bushes, curled in on herself and shivering, her mangy brown-black fur soaked.

"Well there, puss," he murmured, stooping down. "Bit waterlogged, are you? Not a fit afternoon to be out, you poor wee thing." Richard stroked a finger along the cat's wet ears and she miaowed softly, pressing up against his touch. "How about we slip you inside for a bit of cream? I might even be able to wrangle a touch of fish for you, perhaps." He scooped up the cat, and she dug her claws lightly into his jacket.

The kitchen was warm and the brass kettle was already on the stove, whistling brightly. Eileen reached for two cups. "What's that you have?"

Richard set the groceries on the table, then squatted to let the cat jump down. She quirked her head, her whiskers twitching. "Found her under the hydrangea."

His aunt eyed him in amusement as she poured the boiling water into the teapot. "You can't keep her."

"I reckon she belongs to someone." Richard dusted his hands off, rising. "Perhaps those two old blokes a street over. Ones that moved in a year or two back, keep to themselves?" He pulled a few potatoes and a cluster of carrots from the sack. Meat and veg for dinner tonight, it'd be. Something that'd stick to Eileen's bones. God knew she needed it. "Poofs like cats, don't they?"

"Severus doesn't," Eileen said tartly, and she set a saucer of cream on the floor. The cat walked around it twice before lapping cautiously at the cream, tail curling around her haunches.

Richard poured a cup of tea, dropping in a splash of cream and a sugar before he handed it to his aunt. She sat at the table, pulling her dressing gown closer. "How do you think he's doing?"

"I suppose I thought he'd be back by now." Eileen curled her hands around the steaming cup. "Then again time travel's never been one of those magics I easily comprehend."

Richard snorted into his cup of tea, watching as the cat twisted her head towards him. "No _one_ easily comprehends it." The Earl Grey—-black, of course, the only way he'd drink it--was tart and bitter on his tongue.

"Perhaps." Eileen took a sip of tea, and she kept her face carefully schooled. "I worry that he won't come back."

Richard wasn't entirely certain what to say. It was a possibility-—a distinct one, and he didn't care how adept wizards were at moving about in the nonlinearity of time. The fact remained that it was still an uncertain venture at best. And even though he was certain his calculations had been perfect, anything could go wrong.

Anything at all.

He sighed. "You know if he can, he will. He wouldn't leave you behind. He couldn't. Not Severus."

The cat stretched against his leg, scraping her claws lightly against his trousers. He pulled her up into his lap, rubbing behind her ears. Her fur was nearly dry.

Odd, that.

"I suppose I'm merely being a mother," Eileen said over the rim of her teacup, and Richard smiled faintly at her.

His aunt had always been a good mother. Even Severus, for all he despised his family, would agree. She had done her best in a difficult situation—-Richard had entirely no love for his uncle Tobias. The man had been a bastard, a drunken sot who beat the shite out of his son for daring to exist, who had traumatised his wife in every way possible throughout the entirety of their marriage. Richard couldn't remember a time when his uncle had been alive that he'd not seen Severus or Eileen without a bruise somewhere.

They tried to cover them, of course, but even magic couldn't hide every mottled spot, and it was easy enough for the spells to slip. 

Richard understood harshness. His own father had been a strict man, quick to backhand Richard and his sister for the slightest offense. It was just the way things were back then. Money had been tight, and then the mill had closed and there'd been next to nothing. His father and uncle had hated being on the dole. Despised it, with all the pride of their Wesleyan Methodist upbringing.

Dad had managed it in the end, finding work down south. But it had destroyed Uncle Tobias. He'd taken to drinking and fighting and when he'd been found floating in the river one night not long after Severus's nineteenth birthday no one had been surprised.

Least of all Severus.

Richard had never asked his cousin about that. He thought perhaps there were things it was best for him not to know.

A rattle from the back garden sent Eileen to the window, pushing back the lace curtains, peering through the rivulets of rain streaming down the panes. The cat twisted in his arms, hissing softly, and Richard felt his hackles rise.

"What is it?"

Eileen shook her head, but her wand was in her hand. Richard tensed. "Just the neighbours, I think."

But when she looked back her brow was furrowed, and he knew she felt it too.

Without a word, she warded the door yet again.

He didn't think they'd rest easily until Severus came back.

If he ever did.

He stroked the cat's ears thoughtfully.

\--------------------

Severus managed to avoid the boy for most of the following day.

It was a relief of sorts—-he didn't even care that Anastasia glared at him. Three days and then the damned staretz would be dead and he could return to the more comfortable insanity of His Lordship's war.

His duty would be done, his promise to Albus complete. It didn't matter what happened next, whether Azkaban or His Lordship's punishment. Death would almost be a relief after recent events.

Severus was so very tired, after all.

He left the classroom, a sheaf of papers under his arm. The girls' essays would at least provide a modicum of distraction this evening. Enough perhaps to keep his thoughts from straying to golden hair and arrogant grey eyes.

An uncomfortable twinge twisted up Severus's spine. He'd tossed and turned all night, unable to stop the dreams that woke him, flushed and disturbed. Really, there were things one shouldn't do to a student.

No matter how much one might wish to do them.

He turned the corner, lost in thoughts of pale limbs and soft mouths, his boots thudding against the polished parquet floor.

And drew up short.

Draco came out of his bedroom, head bent forward, hair falling into his eyes. His hand lingered on the doorknob as he looked up and Severus felt his face warm.

"What are you doing?" he snapped, and Draco's eyes narrowed.

"Going for a walk, not that it's any of your business." Draco pulled his coat tighter and jammed an ushanka on his head. His hair stuck out of from underneath the silver fur, messily catching on the collar of his black coat.

It was a damned attractive effect, and that irritated Severus. Highly.

He scowled. "It's far too late for you to be wandering about—-"

"Oh, for Circe's sake!" Draco's mouth tightened, and he lifted his chin defiantly. "You're not my father. Stop acting as if you are."

Severus dug his fingernails into his palm. Draco drove him mad at times; he always had. Now, however, he was quite aware of the edge to his frustration, of the inappropriateness of what he wanted from the boy.

"Are you quite done glaring at me?" Draco asked, and his cheeks were pink, his eyes glittering. "Because I'd really like to continue—-"

Severus had had enough.

"Go." He pushed past the boy, opening his own door. "And do tell the Grand Duchess that I expect her reading to be done by morning, no matter what idiocy the two of you imbeciles intend to immerse yourselves in tonight."

Severus slammed the door on Draco's flushed face, cutting the boy's angry protests off.

He wasn't a fool after all.

Nor did he give a _damn_ if Draco couldn't be arsed to keep his trousers buttoned with the girl. Sodding twit.

Severus _despised_ teenagers. Hormonal fools unable to see past the ragged breaths of a quick slap and tickle, idiots who were certain that a hurried shag in an empty classroom actually meant something deeper, foolish tits who found their lives turned upside down, fealty pledged to a madman, because they believed the lies they were told by a soft mouth pressed against their balls in a manner that drove all rational thought from their minds.

He closed his eyes, leaning against the doorjamb.

Evan had promised so damned much, and look where _that_ had got them both.

A bloody Mark on both their arms and Evan twenty years in the grave.

Severus jerked the top dresser drawer open, pulling out the bottle of vodka he'd tucked away. 

He needed a drink. Or two.

\--------------------

Draco had every intention of going for a walk across the snowy parks of Tsarskoye Selo. He'd even made it as far as the side courtyard.

Until the car pulled up to a side door. 

It wasn't an unusual occurrence. Muggles from various ministries and from the Duma arrived on a frequent basis in the boxy black automobiles for audiences with the tsar. It shouldn't have even turned his head.

If, of course, it wasn't for the cloaked woman who hurried to the open passenger door, glancing back nervously at the palace, her hood falling back just enough for Draco to catch a glimpse of her worried face.

Sascha.

A pale hand extended from the dark interior, a heavy silver ring glinting in the sunlight, and Sascha took it, climbing into the car with yet another backwards glance up at the palace windows.

Draco wasn't certain why he cast the tracking charm. It didn't merit thought, even. He just did, the gold-blue sparks settling around the back fender, sinking into the polished chrome as the car sped off, wheels bouncing over the cobblestone courtyard.

\--------------------

Sascha was always uncomfortable at Yusupov Palace.

Odd that, she supposed. She moved through Alexander Palace with ease, almost as if it were her own, which in some ways, it was. 

She'd lived there so many years now.

But Yusupov Palace was cold and bitter, and Sascha had never cared much for Felix Felixovich. 

They had gathered in the library, the young prince with Vasily Maklakov and a man she'd not yet met, tall and handsome with the darkest, burning eyes she'd seen. It must be a fancy of her imagination of course, but she swore they gleamed red in the lamplight.

He stood as she entered with Vladimir Purishkevich, and Yusupov handed her a glass of wine. "Tegleva, my dear. You're late."

"There was a slight drama with Maria Nicholaievna," Sascha said, sipping the wine. She studied the new man curiously. Something about his eyes made her uneasier than normal. 

"Nothing too untoward, I hope," the prince said with a laugh.

She shrugged and took a seat on the brocade lounge. "A missing sash. A tragedy at seventeen." She looked at the stranger over the rim of her glass. "Who's he?"

"An associate from Switzerland by way of Britain," Yusupov said smoothly. "Here to assist in our conspiracy."

The cheerful lilt in his voice made her frown. This was a man's life they were discussing after all. "Rather late for an addition, wouldn't you say?"

"The master has excellent references." Maklakov spoke up then, slurring his words already, the glass of vodka in his hand tilting dangerously to one side. "Nothing a maid should be questioning."

"Of course." Sascha pursed her lips. They were all three idiots. Entirely. 

The stranger smiled faintly at her, and lifted his glass.

She shivered. Those eyes unnerved her. 

Yusupov's boots thudded against the ottoman. He crossed his arms over his belly, eyeing her. "You've information on Grishka, I presume?"

Sascha pulled her gaze away. "Yes. Certainly. Particularly regarding an altercation he had with a tutor at the palace this week—-"

The men leaned forward, eagerly.

Sascha smiled. Not long now, Grigori Efimovich.

\--------------------

Draco had stood outside the palace for nearly two hours now, shivering, his warming charm barely adequate to keep the cold wind at bay. Bloody fucking Russia.

He thought of forcing his way in. It'd be simple enough to take out the Muggle guards. A touch of Imperius, a Stunner cast their way...

And then what?

He'd no idea where to find Sascha, no idea what she was doing, whom she was meeting with.

More information was required. And Draco was determined to find it.

The side door creaked open, startling him, and Sascha came out, alone. She looked around for the car, and Draco smiled faintly. 

He'd at least had the foresight to cast Somnus on the driver.

Pushing off from the cold stone wall, he let his Disillusionment Charm fall away and Sascha jumped at the touch of his fingers on her elbow.

She whirled around. "Draco. What are you doing—-"

"That's actually supposed to be my question," he said, cutting her off. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," she protested. "You _followed_ me here?"

Draco gave up. Others could come out at any moment; there wasn't time for this.

His wand was against her temple and she breathed in sharply. "This won't hurt," Draco murmured, and he hoped he was right. His Legilimancy skills were barest novice. 

The memories were twisted together, and he pushed through them roughly, wincing at her soft whimper. There it was. A room with books and three men and whispers of Rasputin and death and—-one of the men turned, the lamplight catching his greying beard, sharp and pointed, the sharp red gleam of one eye.

It was a face Draco recognised well enough.

Any student who'd managed to stay awake during Binns' class would recognise it. Even Potter, perhaps, although Draco wasn't entirely willing to wager on that particular fact.

He pulled back sharply and Sascha fell against him, her eyes wide. "What was—-"

"Grindelwald," Draco choked out, and he dug his fingers tight into her arms. "What are you doing with him?"

"Who?" Sascha looked at him blankly, and Draco shook her. Her hood fell back. 

"The man in the library—-the red eyes—-"

"I don't know him," she said hotly, trying to pull away. "And you've no right to ask after things that are not your concern—-"

Draco held her tight. "You're not going anywhere—-I have to know-—you don't understand-—" 

Sascha jerked out of his grasp and picked up her skirts. She made it three steps before Draco had his wand against the nape of her neck. 

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, "but I have to. _Imperius._ "

She relaxed against him. 

"Now," Draco said softly into her ear, "we're going to find a bloody warm place and have a pot of tea and you're going to tell me everything you know, all right?"

She nodded and Draco led her away from the palace, along the Moika River. 

 

****

Chapter Fourteen

Severus had only gone through Maria and Tatiana's essays and half the bottle of vodka-—and two-thirds of that half while marking up Maria's ridiculous tripe--when the owl arrived, tapping lightly against the frost-covered windowpane.

The note was unsealed but warded only to him, and he could feel the crack and snap of magic against his fingertips as he opened it. 

_Dinner this evening, half-seven, 64 Gorokhovaia Ulitsa. I will expect you alone, of course. There are things I wish to discuss with you._

Not even a signature. Just as arrogant as His Lordship, assuming that there was no need for one.

There wasn't.

Severus crumpled the note in one hand, tossing it aside with a snarl. And of course, he'd go as summoned. He had no choice.

His palm brushed over the Mark. Of all the foolish choices he'd made--fueled by hatred of his father and infatuation with Evan Rosier. He'd been so bloody stupid. 

He'd sold his soul for a few shags and the siren call of power and revenge. Severus drained his glass of vodka, wiping his arm across his mouth. He'd had his revenge, he supposed. Evan and Wilkes had taken it upon themselves to rid the world of Severus's shameful secret. Hide it so that even His Lordship'd never discover the truth. 

They'd murdered his father, and the shock of it had surprised Severus.

There was little love lost between himself and Tobias Snape. Severus had never been good enough for his father, never been normal enough. He had tried so damned hard during his youth. Done everything he could to please Tobias. He'd wanted what every child did--to stop the screaming, the tears, the dark bruises that lingered on his mother's cheek the morning after Tobias came home off his head, stinking of ale and whisky.

He'd never been able to.

Still, when Evan had told him what they'd done and then blithely expected to be rewarded with Severus's arse, Severus had thrown him out of the tiny room over Slug and Jiggers that he rented for fifteen Galleons a month.

And then he'd packed a case and gone home. To Yorkshire.

He'd spent the last nineteen years of his life attempting to make his peace with his father's spectre.

It remained impossible.

Severus shoved his chair back with a curse, sending Maria Nicholaievna's essay scattering across the desk. This was ridiculous nonsense. The past was the past and there was no time to throw a bloody fit over it.

He had to dress for dinner, after all.

\--------------------

Severus pushed his bowl of pelmeni away, the remnants of the dumplings soaking up the melted butter and sour cream pooling at the bottom.

Rasputin had insisted that business wait until after he'd eaten, and the entirety of the meal had been consumed in silence, the only sounds the scrape of silver against pottery and Grigori Efimovich's pleased grunts as he stuffed the tiny spheres of dough-wrapped lamb and pork in his mouth.

The man's table manners were more appalling than Rubeus's. 

Maria poured Severus more wine—-his third glass, he believed—-and he studied the girl as he lifted the wineglass to his mouth. Her movements were graceful, nearly as elegant as the Grand Duchesses, despite her simple dress and unadorned hair. She watched her father constantly, from under her dark lashes, and Severus caught glimpses of both worry and fear in her guarded glances.

The girl didn't dine with them; Rasputin had informed him that she would eat later, with the sister who had appeared briefly upon his arrival, a shy plain child of sixteen. 

A bell rang in the flat, a sharp clang of metal against metal, and Rasputin looked up from his food finally, wiping his mouth on the hem of his sleeve. "Now we talk," he said, rising as Maria led another man into the dining room.

She kept her distance from the stranger, and Severus noted the nervous twist of her fingers. "Lord Grindelwald, Papa," she murmured, and Severus's blood ran cold.

\--------------------

"It's mad, Harry," Tonks snapped across the table.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He looked tired and worn already, and it'd only been a matter of days. She wondered how much sleep he'd been getting. Not much if Ron's worried look was any indication. "Do you have a better idea?" he asked wearily. "You've already said there's been contact with them."

"But it's his mum-—" Tonks bit down on her lip. It wasn't anything she could explain, she knew that. It was just the way the older woman had looked—-so frail and drained and the greyish pallor of her skin couldn't be healthy. "I just don't think we should bring her in."

The look Harry gave her was frustrated, annoyed even, and she supposed she didn't blame him. "So we let a potential source for finding him go." His fingertips drummed across the tabletop. "Because she's his mum."

"She's not going to tell us anything." It was a weak argument. Tonks didn't even know why she was bothering to make it. Harry was right. It only made sense to question her. To question both of them, even. It was just that, as a cat, she'd smelled something on the woman. Fear. Worry.

Death.

Her nose twitched. 

That'd been the most disturbing, that sickly-sweet scent of decay.

She shivered.

Harry shook his head and he gathered the papers up that were spread across the table in front of him. The rest of the Order shifted in their seats, recognising his signal that the meeting was over. "We go in the morning."

Remus's hand pressed lightly against her arm, a soft, warm touch and Tonks sighed.

Somehow, she thought, this wasn't going to end well.

\--------------------

"So, you're the wizard Grishka argued with," Grindelwald said, his voice bearing the faintest trace of a Germanic accent, and he took a sip of wine from the glass Maria handed him. He glanced at Rasputin. "You'll be pleased to know that was the topic of discussion at Yusupov's this evening."

"The maid?" Rasputin poured vodka into two glasses and pushed one across the table to Severus.

"A very interesting girl." Grindelwald smiled then, a sharp flash of white against the grey-black of his beard. "With a far more interesting companion waiting for her outside." He studied Severus. "Would you care to tell us why the boy was following Tegleva?"

Severus's stomach twisted. Bloody hell, could the idiot not keep himself from trouble? He drained the glass of vodka in one swallow, grimacing at the burn. 

He met Grindelwald's gaze calmly, mind prepared at the first delicate press against his memories. "Draco does as he pleases. He's not a child, after all." 

Grindelwald's eyes narrowed; Severus held back the flinch. He could feel the Dark wizard searching for entrance, seeking that one small crack to slip through. 

He found none.

"An Occlumens." Grindelwald turned his wineglass in his hand and the light from the hearth sparkled across the rim. "And an excellent one at that."

"You might say I've had a great deal of practice," Severus said dryly. He refilled his glass from the bottle on the table, watching as the clear vodka sloshed up the sides.

Rasputin snorted softly. 

The eyes were on Severus, both sets, and he could feel the presence of the soul twisting through the room. It was a familiar prickling along his spine, a flutter in his stomach that he recognised from his audiences with the Dark Lord.

And then Grindelwald grabbed Severus's wrist, jerking the sleeves of his jacket and shirt up, buttons flying across the table. 

The Mark was exposed, black and angry against his pale skin and Grindelwald's sharp fingernails dug into Severus's flesh. 

"Not one of mine," Grindelwald murmured. He traced a cold fingertip along the curve of the skull and looked up at Severus thoughtfully. "Old magic this. Who bound you?"

Severus said nothing, barely breathing out. He kept his mind blank, empty, the chinks tightly stuffed. 

The Mark burned beneath those fingers, hot and painful, and Severus could only hope that it didn't disperse to Draco. He wouldn't have him frightened. Alone.

He pushed his Occlumency more firmly into place. 

Grindelwald dropped Severus's arm and settled back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "And so we have a mystery, my dear Grigori. Just in time for the implementation of our plan."

Rasputin glared at Grindelwald, and Severus saw the twist of bitterness cross the wizard's face. "Then kill him and be done with it."

"No," Grindelwald said softly, a faint red glint in his eyes burning into Severus's skin. "Not yet. He'll behave himself, this one. Whatever he intends." He leaned forward. "Won't you, Severus? The boy means something to you, after all, and you wouldn't wish him harmed."

Severus's breath caught. How had he--his Occlumens had been perfect.

 _Not entirely._ Grindelwald's voice twisted in his mind, amused. _You've a weakness, Severus. So very foolish of you, but understandable. Even the most cautious man may be ruled by his cock--_

Severus jerked back, stumbling to his feet. "I'm done with this."

Grindelwald smiled at him, raising his wineglass to his thin lips. "As you wish." 

_Do watch yourself,_ the voice whispered. _Or I'll have the boy._

It was all Severus could do to not run from the room.

\--------------------

He had just opened his second bottle of firewhisky when Maria Grigorievna found him.

The pub on Vasilievsky Island was crowded with wizards—-and a few witches at that. It was noisy and boisterous and Severus had waited nearly a half-hour just to claim the tiny table in the corner near the alley doorway. 

The smell of piss and vomit wafted past each time the door opened, bringing with it another swirl of cold wind and snow, but Severus didn't give a damn. 

He'd not expected this. Neither had Albus—-there'd never been any indication in his research that Rasputin had any prior knowledge of Grindelwald. He'd always assumed—-oh, bloody hell, he didn't know what he assumed any longer. He drained the whisky, curls of smoke twisting from the glass as he set it down with a thump.

The girl slid into the seat across from him, her face almost hidden by the swath of scarves and cloak. The hood dropped back.

"You shouldn't be drinking so much," she said reproachfully and Severus snorted. Not as if she'd any call to lecture, what with her father's habits.

He caught the bottle before she pulled it away and poured another glass. "Tell your wretch of a father he may go to hell."

Maria looked down at her hands, clasped on the sticky tabletop. "You don't understand. He wasn't like this before. It's only been--" She broke off, biting her lip. "It's the Old One in him."

Severus scowled. What _was_ the little cow on about? "The Old One." Ridiculous tripe. He took another swallow of firewhisky.

She nodded. "He met this man on one of his pilgrimages, oh, a decade past, it must have been. He was a very powerful wizard, and he told Papa that he could have anything he wished for--all the power and the wealth--" Maria looked at Severus then. "You have to understand; we were just peasants from Siberia, and even among wizards there's little lower. And Papa was always so powerful. The wizards in Pokrovskoe feared him just as much as did the Muggles when he was just a boy. He knew things. Could see them."

"And?" Severus thought perhaps there was the slightest possibility that he might be drunk.

Maria took a deep breath. "The Old One lived in the wizard. And when he died, he moved into Papa." Her face twisted. "And then everything changed."

"Well, obviously." Severus downed half his firewhisky in one gulp. "When did Lord Grindelwald--" he said the name with a curl of his lip "--enter into the picture?"

"Three months ago. He just knocked on the door, and Papa brought him in as if he were expecting him. We'd never met him before. " She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "He frightens Varya nearly as much as Papa does. She has a sense for these things--oddness, things that make your skin crawl a bit--"

"Evil," Severus said bluntly.

Maria was silent for a moment and then she sighed. "Yes," she said, her voice soft, and she looked up at Severus again. "I just want my Papa back, however that can be."

"And if it can't?" Severus watched her closely. The girl was torn, that much he could tell, between fear and love and anger. He understood far too well.

"He hit Varya today," she said quietly. "It's happened more and more with both of us. He didn't do that before, not even after the Old One--" She hesitated, and then she pulled her sleeve up, revealing a mass of yellowing bruises mottling her thin arm. Severus flinched. "We were his little girls, you see. But lately, over the past year--well, we thought it was just the worry of all the people wanting him dead. Now, though, that _he's_ here...I'm not so certain."

Severus poured more firewhisky and pushed the glass towards her. She shook her head, and he shrugged and swallowed the whisky himself, letting the bitter smoke drift around him. 

"The Old One, as you call it," he said finally, "is half of a soul. The other half resides in Grindelwald." He twisted the glass between his hands, the warm slickness heavy across his palm. "He wishes to unite them."

Maria's dark eyes flitted to his face. "Papa's seen his own death."

"Yes." Severus pushed the glass aside. His head buzzed. 

"He doesn't want to die. He's fighting with the Old One. I can tell." She blinked and looked away, her eyes too bright. "I've heard him. He could break free--"

"Perhaps." Severus hesitated. It seemed ridiculous to lie to the girl. But then, he had held to his own foolish hope until the moment Evan had told him his father was floating in the River Calder. "It is possible."

She relaxed against her chair. "I thought it might be."

A twinge of guilt sent Severus reaching for the firewhisky again. "I could perhaps help him, but I would need your assistance." 

She nodded, hope blossoming in her eyes. Severus damned himself to hell for his deception.

He drained his glass.

\--------------------

Draco stared out the window at the snow drifting past. Thick, fluffy flakes that piled on the granite window sill, clean and white.

Pure.

About the only thing in this damned world that was.

Yusupov was plotting Rasputin's death, Sascha had told him. There had been a date selected, she'd overheard, although she only knew it to be in mid-December. That was the only time Grand Duke Dimitri Pavelovich had free in his social calendar, and he did so wish to be involved in the staretz' demise. 

He'd Obliviated her on their return, taking away everything of the evening--and more. Draco liked Sascha, Muggle though she might be. It was the least he could do to protect the stupid woman when Rasputin's death was discovered. And he'd make certain the others forgot her as well. A charm delivered by post perhaps. Simple enough to perform on Muggles.

His door opened and he turned around sharply, his wand in hand as Snape stumbled in, closing the door behind him. He stank of whisky. 

"What are you doing?" Draco'd never seen Snape in such a state, and when those black eyes turned on him, his breath caught. 

And then Snape was in front of him, and his hands were on Draco's arms, pulling him closer and Draco knew what he was going to do--he could see it in the glitter of Snape's eyes.

"Don't--" he began and then broke off, leaning forward, the heat of Snape's breath against his lips. It was a feeble protest.

Merlin, he wanted this. Wanted him.

Snape's mouth was wet and warm and surprisingly soft against Draco's, and Draco shifted closer, one arm slipping around Snape's neck. 

So _this_ was what it was like to be kissed by a man--and then Draco stopped thinking because Snape's tongue slid over his teeth and he gasped, his mouth opening just enough for Snape to press deeper, licking gently across the top of his mouth. 

"Mine. They won't have you," Snape said and Draco couldn't stop kissing him even as he spoke. He'd wanted this--dreamed about it late at night. He twisted his fingers in Snape's hair--Snape's hair, Merlin, it was _Snape_ kissing him like this, taking his breath away--he tasted of wine and firewhisky.

Draco wanted more. "Severus," he murmured, and at Snape's soft grunt, Draco laughed, his mouth wet and open and he kissed him wildly, hands twisted in thick, lank hair. "Severus."

He rocked his hips forward, pressing his body against Snape's and when Snape grabbed his arse, fingers digging into the crease of his thighs, Draco moaned and bit his jaw. 

This was entirely mad.

Snape pushed him backwards onto the bed, kissing him roughly, and Draco didn't stop to wonder how they'd stumbled across the room. He wanted to touch Snape, to feel the warmth of his skin under his palms, and he jerked at the buttons of Snape's shirt. 

So many damned buttons--they scattered and Draco pushed the soft linen away, running his hands over Snape's chest as he arched up into each heated kiss. Snape's skin was soft, the hair rough against his palms, his nipples hard and tight as Draco's fingertips skimmed over them. He groaned into Draco's mouth, biting his bottom lip and Draco felt his mouth move against his. 

"Fuck," Snape whispered and the very word on his professor's lips caused Draco to writhe beneath him.

And then Snape pulled away, and Draco blinked up at him, protesting until Snape's fingers pulled at Draco's shirt, tugging it off roughly, before sliding down to stroke Draco's cock through the soft flannel of his trousers.

Draco's hips bucked up. Merlin--it was so much bloody better than touching himself, this steady pressure of Snape's palm cupping him, thumb rubbing fabric over the hard swell of his head. "Oh, God," he whispered, and his trousers were open and Snape's hand curled around him, hot and firm.

One tug, his foreskin smoothing up over his head, and Draco stared up at Snape, his eyes wide, his fingers digging into Snape's shoulders. 

"Beautiful," Snape murmured, and his mouth brushed over Draco's jaw, teeth nipping lightly as he slid his thumb down Draco's shaft. 

Draco breathed in, and his hands pushed at Snape's shirt, shoving it off his shoulders. Skin, warm and soft against his palms--Draco groaned. Snape felt so very different than Pansy had the few times they'd lain on his bed in the dormitory, Pansy's small hands guiding his as they'd kissed breathlessly, eagerly. She had been soft and small, her breasts swelling up over the cups of her bra, her knickers wet as she rubbed up against him. Snape was lanky and firm, his lean muscles shifting beneath pale skin, and his cock pressed against Draco's hip, hot and hard. 

He wanted that cock. 

Pansy had been right--he'd always fancied Snape--and he gasped into a kiss, turning his head to bite down Snape's neck. "Please," he whispered, pressing his cock into Snape's hand. 

Snape pulled away again, and Draco found himself flipped over onto his stomach, Snape's hands jerking his trousers down his thighs. Draco kicked them off eagerly, arching up as Snape's hands slid up his back, thumbnails scratching lightly across the curve of his shoulders. His mouth followed, sucking lightly on his knobbly spine and Draco had never felt anything so amazing.

Until Snape's fingers slid back down, through his crease, rubbing lightly against his arsehole. 

"Fuck," Draco groaned, lifting his hips, pressing his face into the coverlet. 

"That would be my intention," Snape murmured against Draco's hip, and he pulled away. Draco looked over, his breath catching. Snape was half-dressed, his trousers hanging low on his hips, and how had Draco never seen how erotic that sharp jut of hipbone could be when the firelight hit it in just that manner? He wanted to mouth it, to run his tongue along that small ridge, lapping lightly at Snape's navel—-just like that-—yes--

He pulled his mouth away. Snape was looking down at him, eyes dark and hot, and his black trousers were tented. Draco rubbed his cheek against the wool, his hand tugging at the buttons, and Snape's breath caught in the back of his throat, and his fingers twisted in Draco's hair.

Draco barely waited for Snape's cock to fall into his hand before his mouth was there, tongue lapping lightly at the swollen head. 

He'd always wondered what cock would taste like, how it would feel in his mouth and Snape hissed sharply, tugging at his hair.

"Teeth," he choked out and Draco flushed.

He sucked lightly at the head, his fingers smoothing up and down Snape's shaft, the skin beneath shifting with each careful stroke. Snape's hand was on the nape of his neck, fingers massaging Draco's skin as he rocked forward, his cock pressing slowly into Draco's mouth. 

Draco loved the bitter taste and the musky scent of Snape's skin and the soft scratch of dark hair against his cheek as he slid his tongue down Snape's shaft. 

The noises that Snape was making-—those soft, sharp gasps, the quiet groans—-Draco was causing those, Draco was making his professor flush, making him twist against Draco's hands. 

It was bloody amazing.

"I can't—-" Snape caught his head, pulling back, his wet cock smacking lightly against Draco's mouth. "I need to be in—-"

"God, yes," Draco whispered, a shiver going up his spine at the glitter in Snape's eye. 

Snape fumbled in the drawers next to the bed, swearing under his breath until he pulled out a small tub of Coty lotion that Anastasia had given him the day before when he'd complained of the cold chafing his skin. He'd tossed it aside, refusing to go about reeking of violets.

Now, however, he didn't give a damn if it meant that Snape was going to be inside of him. 

"Arse up," Snape said roughly, and Draco turned over, his cock catching on the twisted coverlet as he shifted to his hands and knees. He glanced back; Snape was pushing his trousers down, and his body was long and thin in the flickering flames from the fireplace. He wasn't beautiful—-no one could ever call Severus Snape beautiful--but Draco wanted him, wanted to touch him, to feel him move against him, inside him. 

He'd wanted--for so long--

Draco groaned, rocking back on his knees. "Fuck, please--"

Snape's hand smacked against his arse and Draco flinched at the sting. "Patience." 

He felt the mattress dip beneath him, and then Snape's hands were on him again, gentle this time, and slick. A finger pressed against his hole, rubbing lightly, and then it pressed in and Draco gasped at the sharp burn.

"Relax," Snape said and his mouth dragged across Draco's skin again, open and wet against his spine. Draco breathed out, pushing slowly against Snape's finger and Snape pressed in further, twisting his finger, sliding another in. 

Draco bit his lip. It hurt, burned, and he dug his fingers into the bed as Snape stretched him. And then Snape's cock was there, rubbing across his hole and Snape's fingers were tight on his hips. 

There was pain—-Draco knew there'd be and he breathed out as Snape pressed in further with a groan, and then he was inside and Draco arched his shoulders, rocking back into Snape's hands with a soft groan.

They stayed still for a moment, both breathing hard, and Snape's hands smoothed up Draco's back, then back down to his hips and it was the most erotic touch Draco could imagine. 

And then Snape pressed forward, sliding deeper and Draco gasped.

Snape fucked him slowly, each thrust rocking Draco forward until sweat slicked his back, dampened the hair at the nape of his neck. His cock ached, and he _needed_ the steady pressure of Snape inside of him, pulling far enough out that Draco could feel the swell of his head before slipping back in, his fingernails digging into Draco's hipbones.

It was excruciatingly exquisite.

Snape's breath was hot against his skin as he bent over Draco's back, and his thrusts quickened, his balls slapping against Draco's arse. Draco rocked into each movement, wanting Snape deeper, and he could feel Snape's hair brush across his shoulder blades, sending tiny prickles sparking across his skin. 

He needed more and he groaned, arching his back as Snape's teeth scraped his neck. _Please more—-God—-yes—-more--please--_

Snape's arm curled around his waist, and he pulled Draco up as he shoved into him, his thighs tense beneath Draco's arse. Draco was straddling Snape, and he caught the headboard with one hand, steadying himself as Snape slammed deeper into his arse, his gasps ragged in Draco's ear. 

Draco's head fell back against Snape's shoulder. His skin was on fire, and Snape's fingers were rubbing across his nipples, pinching and scraping and he was so bloody fucking hard--

He turned his head and Snape kissed him, rough and desperate, mouth open and wet, tongue sliding across Draco's, hair catching on Draco's damp skin, and Draco's fingers clenched the headboard tightly. He needed more, wanted more, more, Christ--

"Fuck yourself," Snape groaned against Draco's mouth and Draco bit Snape's bottom lip lightly. Snape's hand was on his, and he pulled Draco's hand to his cock. "Want to watch you come—-"

It was nearly too much.

Draco jerked at his cock, gasping as Snape thrust into him, matching the rhythm of his strokes. His balls were tight and hot and his cock ached—-fucking _Merlin_ , this was so much better than wanking, and he wanted to come, needed to, and Snape was in his ear telling him to, and his hand was sliding down his wet cock, and Draco couldn't stop, didn't want to stop and it felt so bloody incredible--

He came with a choked cry, his hand sticky and warm, and Snape was whispering against his skin and Draco couldn't make the words out, but it didn't matter because it was Snape's mouth on his throat, and his hands on Draco's thighs, and then on his balls, stroking lightly, and then on his stomach and Draco lurched forward, catching himself with one hand as Snape slammed into him, all sense of rhythm gone.

And then Snape tensed and his fingernails scraped over Draco's skin and his mouth was on Draco's hair and Draco fell into the mattress, with Snape collapsed on him, heavy and hot.

They lay gasping; Snape's cock still inside of Draco, and he wasn't entirely certain he ever wanted him to leave.

And then Draco shifted, and Snape pulled away, rolling to the side. He stared up at the ceiling, then ran a hand over his face.

Draco looked at him, suddenly uncertain. "Severus--"

"I'm sorry." Snape sat up. "I shouldn't have--"

"Don't." Anger flared in Draco. He wouldn't let him do this—-not now, not here. He caught Snape's hand and pulled him back onto the bed. "Don't you dare leave me."

Snape looked at him then, eyes shuttered. "I'm pissed and you're—"

"Very well buggered." Draco kissed Snape, pulling him back down against him. "And hoping to be again later." 

Snape pulled back, and he brushed Draco's hair off his forehead, his brow furrowed.

Draco caught Snape's face between his hands, dragging his thumb across his bottom lip. "I've wanted this," he whispered.

"You're a child—-" 

"Oh for God's sake." Draco glared at him. "Not this stupid argument again—-"

Snape fell silent, looking at him. 

"Don't ruin this," Draco said softly. "Stay here tonight. Please. And if you want to leave in the morning--"

Snape cut him off, his mouth catching Draco's. "You're an idiot," Snape murmured.

"I know." Draco tucked a lock of dirty hair behind Snape's ear. "You'll stay?"

Snape smiled faintly, ruefully. "I believe I may be an idiot as well."

"We're a pair." Draco kissed the corner of Snape's mouth. He didn't know what this was, what he felt. But he didn't care. He just wanted to feel. 

Perhaps Anastasia was right—-he pushed the thought away and wrapped his arms around Snape's neck, lifting his head for a kiss, slow and heated. Just tonight. That's all he had asked for, it was all he would expect.

Morning, he hoped, was a long time away.

 

****

Chapter Fifteen

Severus had a _bugger_ of a headache.

He opened his eyes slowly, waiting for the burn to subside. A leg was twined between his, a head rested on his shoulder, white-blond hair catching on the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, Christ," he murmured, and he looked down at Draco, curled around him, breathing softly against his chest.

The boy was beautiful in the early morning light, his mouth pink and soft and still slightly swollen from Severus's kisses.

His kisses. The enormity of what they'd done—-what had happened—-struck him. He'd slept with a student. With a Slytherin.

With Draco.

Severus shifted slightly, and long, gold-brown eyelashes fluttered and blinked and then Draco stretched with just the barest of winces.

"Good morning," he said, almost hesitantly, and Severus just looked at him, thoughts racing through his mind, recriminations, guilt, want--

Draco sighed. "You're going to be ridiculous about this, aren't you? I'm not a bloody student any longer--"

Severus silenced him with a kiss, pushing Draco back against the pillows, his hand sliding down to curl around Draco's hip. Draco's arms settled across his shoulders, heavy and warm.

Oddly, it felt right. Comfortable.

Safe.

He raised his head, brushed Draco's hair back from his forehead.

"That was...unexpected," Draco said breathlessly, and Severus laughed softly, laughed for the first time in months—-years, perhaps—-and he rested his forehead against Draco's.

"Perhaps I've already accepted my condemnation to hell."

Draco slid a foot up the back of Severus's calf. "Can I come along?"

"Aren't seductive little brats automatically sent or have I mangled my Catechism again?" Severus licked the corner of Draco's mouth, then kissed him, teeth and tongues colliding. It was messy and eager and altogether delicious.

Draco slid his hands down Severus's back. "I've things to tell you, you know." He arched his neck as Severus bit down it. "Merlin ,that's nice--"

"They can wait." Snape slid over Draco, dragging his cock over Draco's hip. The boy groaned and rubbed against him.

"It's important." Draco sucked at Severus's bottom lip and it was enough to drive Severus mad. He rocked forward, their cocks sliding together, and Draco gasped, grabbing at him. "All right, maybe not that important—-bloody _hell,_ don't you dare stop, you bastard—-"

Severus kissed him roughly, pulling Draco's hands up over his head.

Really, he hadn't the slightest intention of stopping.

Headache be damned.

\--------------------

Draco was utterly appalled to find himself _humming_ as he entered the Crimson Room.

Anastasia was curled on the red velvet chesterfield, tucked in the corner, a book in hand, blanket wrapped tightly around her legs. Her embroidery was abandoned beside, a snarled mass of bright thread against the white linen. She turned a page, not bothering to look up.

"Someone's surprisingly cheerful this afternoon."

Draco dropped gingerly onto the chesterfield beside her, letting his boots dangle off the end. "It's a nice day."

Anastasia wrinkled her nose. "Have you been using that lotion? You reek of violets."

"You might say." Draco laughed, and for the first time since Father had been taken to Azkaban, he was actually happy. Truly happy. His arse ached and his mouth felt bruised and all he wanted to do was crawl back into bed with Snape--and he'd still be there if he'd not been tossed out of the room for distracting him with kisses while he was marking.

Draco had discovered an absolute passion for sex.

Odd, really. He'd not minded fooling around with Pansy. Merlin, he'd only been sixteen last term and all of them--Nott and Zabini and even Crabbe and Goyle--had been obsessed with getting off in any way possible. Alone or with a girl.

And Pansy was his best friend. Had always been, really, since they were children. But it'd not been the same, last night. It'd been rawer. Hungrier. He and Pansy--even when they both came, bodies sliding together through their half-rumpled clothes, gasping and groaning, it'd been careful. Almost awkward. Not like it'd been with Snape, their hands pulling at each other, mouths biting as they rutted against each other wildly, all skin and hair and teeth--

Merlin, he _had_ to stop thinking about it or he'd have a problem.

Anastasia was twisting her hair absently around her finger, her nose back in her book.

"You were right," Draco said, and she glanced over at him, her hand stilling. "I don't say that very often to people, so you should be rather pleased with yourself, really."

She set the book aside. "And what was I right about?"

Draco felt his cheeks warm. "Snape." He stared into the hearth, trying not to smile. Somehow that seemed an impossibility. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Good." Anastasia plopped her stockinged feet in his lap, nudging at his hip affectionately. "I, Mr Malfoy, am _always_ right."

Her imitation of Snape was pitch-perfect, and Draco snorted. "You'd best not let him hear that."

She leaned over and kissed his cheek quickly before pulling back, tucking the blanket back around her hips. "Be happy, Draco. You deserve it."

He didn't. He knew that.

But he wanted to be happy anyway.

He squeezed her ankle gently, and the snow fell past the tall, paned windows, light shimmering through thick, white flakes.

\--------------------

The rain had started again. Tonks pulled her Auror's cloak around her shoulders, dipping her head beneath the hood. Christ. Did it ever let up?

Kingsley came up beside her, his eyes fixed on the rowhouses down the street. "He's certain about this?"

"He says it's the only way." Tonks chewed her bottom lip. "You don't think he's wrong, do you?"

Kingsley said nothing for a moment. His gold earring sparkled in the rain when he looked at Tonks. "I think Potter's doing what he has to do. What we all have to do." He glanced back at the rowhouses with their tiny gardens and windowboxes of geraniums red in the rain. "I suppose how it all falls out is up to her. Whether she cooperates or not."

"She won't." Tonks stared blankly down the hill. Harry'd give the signal shortly, and then God only knew what would happen. Ten Aurors to four people—-and that was only if Snape and Malfoy happened to be inside. If not...she shivered. At least Harry'd made certain the Aurors there were experienced. No wand-happy lads who were likely to hex first and ask later.

"She won't? It'd be in her best interests--"

Tonks shook her head. "Why would she care?" She met Kingsley's raised eyebrow with an even gaze. "She's a mum. She'll protect him however she has to." She looked back at the houses. "That's what I'd do."

Blue sparks shot off behind the hedgerow. Harry.

"Ready?" Kingsley asked, tensing.

With a sigh, Tonks pulled out her wand. "As I'll ever be, I suppose."

She started down the path towards the houses.

\--------------------

"I think I've created a monster." Severus slid his hands up Draco's back, underneath his open shirt, half-hanging off his pale shoulders.

Draco kissed Severus, letting his teeth scrape over Severus's bottom lip. He was straddling Severus's thighs, their shirts unbuttoned, Severus's trousers gaping wide, Draco's crumpled on the floor. "

Don't tell me you don't like it," Draco said, and he gripped the back of the armchair tightly, rocking his hips forward. His cock slid hot and hard against Severus's.

Severus groaned and his fingernails scraped down Draco's back. He arched his neck, letting Draco bite down his throat. "If I'd known you'd be this insatiable—"

"You'd what?" Draco dragged his mouth over Severus's jaw, and his cock rubbed against Severus's, making him gasp. "Have had me on my knees months ago?"

"Perhaps." Severus pulled Draco closer, pressing his hips up. The heavy slide of their cocks together had his breath ragged, coming in short, sharp pants. He couldn't believe what this boy did to him. How much he wanted him.

Needed him.

"Merlin." Severus breathed out, and his fingers slipped on Draco's damp skin. He was so bloody close; they'd been at it again for a good hour now, mouths and cocks and hands pressing and pulling and biting and sucking and—bloody _fuck._

Draco's mouth was on his, and he was rocking forward, quick and hard, pressing his cock against Severus's, the head sliding slick and sticky across Severus's stomach, and Severus couldn't stop himself, couldn't keep his hips from bucking up, couldn't keep his hands from scrabbling across Draco's back, pulling him closer as he arched up, his arse nearly lifting from the chair as he came with a cry.

He sank back against the worn brocade, gasping, as Draco rubbed against him wildly, his eyes bright and unfocused, his breath hot groans against Severus's cheek, and Severus slid his hands over Draco's hips, pulling him forward, his fingers clenching at the soft, smooth plane of his arse.

Draco came, biting down on Severus's neck and he writhed beneath his hands, his cock pressed hard to Severus's belly.

They sprawled in the chair together, bodies twined, sticky and sweaty, and Severus kissed the curve of Draco's jaw. "Better?" he murmured and Draco laughed weakly into Severus's lank hair.

"A bit." Draco shifted, splayed a hand across Severus's chest. "I think I can feel your heart beating."

"I'm bloody surprised it didn't explode," Severus said dryly, and he raked his fingers through Draco's hair, twisting a damp lock around his thumb.

Draco smiled faintly, pressing his mouth to Severus's chest, and the simple intimacy of that caught Severus's breath.

He stared down at Draco, and the realisation of what he wanted from the boy rushed through him, terrifying him. He'd never--not even Evan and that had been the closest he'd ever come to--he couldn't even think the words without his throat closing off.

_Fuck._

The beat of wings against the windowpanes turned his head. A small, snow-covered owl shivered on the windowsill, and a twist of guilty relief curled through Severus's gut.

"Who's that?" Draco slid out of his lap, and Severus pulled his trousers together, buttoning them as he strode across the room to open the window.

The owl tumbled in on a burst of cold air, scattering snow across the carpet. Severus untied the note, scanning it, his brow furrowing.

"Maria Grigorievna's written," he said grimly. "Yusupov collected her father three hours past, according to the maid. Maria and her sister were sleeping."

"As they should be." Draco glanced at the clock. "It's nearly half three. What is he doing at this hour?"

"Committing murder, I would say." Severus scrawled a note on the back of Maria's. _Stay where you are. Owl only if you see either of them._ He tied it to the owl's leg, sending it off with a sharp command. He glanced back at Draco. "Get dressed. We're late."

\--------------------

The alley outside Yusopov Palace was bitterly cold. A sharp wind blew down it, sending snow swirling around Draco's face. He pulled his coat tighter, clutched a black box in his hands, his thumb tracing across the runes carved on the lid.

His breath formed small grey puffs against the black air. He'd much rather be in bed in front of the fire with Snape wrapped around him—-he sighed, and wrapped his heavy scarf around his chin.

He wasn't certain whether to curse His Lordship, Grindelwald or bloody Rasputin at the moment.

Snape came back around the corner. "No need to worry about the guards," he said, sliding his wand back in his pocket. "This way."

Draco followed him to the front of the palace, the ice crunching beneath his boots. Snape stopped suddenly, pushing Draco back into the shadows. The lights of a car swept across the street, stopping in front of the palace.

"What--" Draco started, and Snape pressed his hand over Draco's mouth. Draco scowled up at him, pulling away, but the door to the palace opened, and Yusopov stumbled out. Maklakov, and Purishkevich followed him, a body dragging between them wrapped in a cloth, bound with heavy cords. Grand Duke Dimitri Pavelovich and two other men Draco had not seen in Sascha's memories brought up the rear.

"He's got to be dead by now," Maklakov said, his voice panicked and high-pitched. "How many times do you have to kill the damned man?"

"Keep your voice down, you fool." Purishkevich looked around nervously. "Put him in the car."

The two strangers hefted the body into the back of black automobile with a grunt and a shove, slamming the door closed.

"Go," Yusupov said, and he took out a cigarette, lighting it with shaking hands. "Be rid of him before he sits up again--"

Draco looked at Snape sharply and he held up his hand, hushing him. Purishkevich and the Grand Duke climbed into the car, the two strangers joining them.

The car roared off, leaving tracks in the fresh snow.

"We're too late—-" Draco hissed and Snape grabbed his arm.

"We've one more chance," Snape said shortly. "The Petrovsky Bridge."

They Disapparated.

\--------------------

The bridge, normally bustling during the day with carts and horses and vendors shouting back and forth, was silent at this hour of the night.

Severus led Draco beneath the bridge. "They'll throw him over into there," he explained, pointing to a wide hole in the ice. "We'll need to catch him, pull him out long enough to take the soul."

Draco held the _sjel felle_ tightly and nodded. His face was pale, his eyes nervous. Severus touched his cheek. "It won't be long now," he murmured and Draco gave him a faint smile.

They waited silently, tensely, the cold seeping past their warming charms and into their clothes, twisting against their skin. Draco shivered, and Snape drew him closer, wrapping his arms around him.

He kept his mind blank, refusing to think about anything coming up, refusing to let his fear have reign. Instead, he focused on the scent of Draco's hair—-slightly musky and almondy-—and the curve of his throat, and the press of his body against his.

And then they heard the sputter of an engine above, then the slam of a door. Severus looked at Draco, raising his eyebrow, and Draco nodded again. They pulled apart, almost reluctantly, and took out their wands. Severus moved to the edge of the river, waiting, hiding behind a wide snowdrift.

The body, wrapped in heavy chains, save for one arm that swung free, tumbled from the bridge, splashing into the water of the Neva.

"Wait," Severus murmured, and he cast a muffling charm.

They hurried to the edge of the hole, feet slipping on the wet ice, and Draco took the other side, looking at Severus expectantly.

He nodded.

Their wands dipped towards the icy water, silver sparks scattering from the tips as they lifted Grigori Efimovich's body from the river, levitating him to the bank and dropping him on the snow.

"Now," Severus said, and Draco opened the soul trap.

Neither of them saw the spell that sent Severus flying into a snowdrift, his blood a crimson arc against pure white.

 

He blinked, his body shaking as the pain washed over him, and he could have sworn he saw a pale figure run down the bank.

Draco whirled around, his wand raised—-and then it flew out of his hand, arching towards the bridge.

Grindelwald stepped out from behind a piling, black cloak sweeping across the snowy ice. His eyes gleamed red as he tossed Draco's wand aside, sending it skittering across the river. "I think it's time for my arrival into this farce." His wand was pointed at Severus's chest and Severus felt the binding spell twist around him, freezing his muscles.

The gaping wound on his chest ached and he made his breaths shallow in the hopes of slowing the blood.

Draco swore, cursing the Dark wizard to hell and beyond.

"I would be very careful, Mr Malfoy," Grindelwald said with a faint laugh that sent a chill up Severus's spine. "I may just decide to finish off your lover." Grindelwald regarded Draco with cold, amused eyes. "Such thoughts the both of you have for each other. Rather twisted of you both, but then, I've always considered your sort...unnatural."

Draco fell silent, sullenly. 

Grindelwald smiled faintly at Severus. "You do think so highly of your Occlumency, do you not?" He squatted next to Rasputin. "I've known what you intend to do, and I have no intention of allowing it. I would insist you inform your Master of that fact, but as I've no intention of allowing either of you to live..."

His wand swept over Rasputin's body, and Grindelwald murmured the incantation, singing it softly under his breath until it swelled, resonating against the granite underbelly of the bridge. A twist of mist rose from Rasputin's chest, swirling softly.

"Mine," Grindelwald said, and he ran a hand through the mist with a sharp laugh. He pressed his wand to Rasputin's chest, and he sang the incantation again, louder now, chanting as more mist joined the faint curls twisting in the air above the corpse.

Draco crept his way to Severus's side.

Severus clenched his fists. The pain was nearly unbearable, the curse sinking into his flesh, eating away at it slowly as his hot blood melted the snow beneath him. He'd failed. Failed Albus. Failed himself. Failed Draco.

Draco met his gaze, blinking hard. "I'm sor--"

"Don't," Severus said and he glared at Draco. "You have to stop him." He coughed, the taste of blood on his tongue. There wasn't much time.

"I can't--" Draco broke off, staring at Severus. _I don't want to leave you._

Severus looked sharply at him and coughed, a bubble of blood forming on his lips and bursting, staining his pale skin.

 _There's a chink in your Occlumency,_ Draco thought at him. _Bit of a big one there, really, when you think of me._

"Brat," Severus murmured and Draco smiled.

Severus let his mind push against Draco's. _Use the Time-turner._

Draco glanced back at Grindelwald. The curl of soul had gotten larger now, and it was twisting around his wrist, making its way up his arm. 

_Go. Do something. Stop him._

"There's not enough-—" Draco tensed and his eyes drifted back to Severus. _There's a damned good chance I'll drain the magic too far to take us both home._

Severus took a rattling breath. "For God's sake, home is--" He looked at Draco. _I don't want to **die** here, damn it, and if you don't stop him—-_ A trail of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. "Take my wand."

Draco pressed his lips together, his hands shaking. "I'll return. I promise," he whispered, and he wiggled his hand into Severus's pocket, curling his fingers around Severus's wand and the thin gold chain of the Time-turner, pulling them free. He glanced over at Grindelwald, still crouched over Rasputin's body, the wisps of mist nearly covering him.

"Just go." Severus whispered.

Draco kissed him then, quick and rough, and he pulled back, his thumb finding the knob on top of the Time-turner, twisting it only the tiniest bit.

He faded into the snow.

 

****

Chapter Sixteen

Eileen stood at the sitting room window, watching the street through the lace curtain. She knew they'd come eventually. She wondered idly, rolling her wand between her fingertips, if Pyrites had spoken with the Aurors. Severus had paid him a great deal of money over the years, however, to ensure his discretion.

Richard glanced at her nervously. "What exactly are they going to do?"

"Attempt to make certain Severus isn't here." Eileen looked at her nephew. "You should go, Dicky. You're a Muggle; they won't cause you harm."

Richard snorted. "As if I'm fool enough to leave you here alone." He shifted the golf club form one hand to another, and Eileen resisted the urge to laugh. Somehow it seemed inappropriate at the moment. "Severus would have my hide when he returns."

The blue sparks drifted over the hedgerow and Eileen's mouth thinned. It was time to see how strong Severus's warding was.

She tightened her grip on her wand, walking to the foyer.

Gryffindors, after all, were rather predictable.

\--------------------

Draco found himself standing outside Yusopov Palace, snow swirling around him. Light gleamed from the windows above him, warm and bright.

Snape's wand felt strange in his hand. Heavier than his own, thicker at the grip, and the magic that thrummed against his palm was slightly off.

And yet strangely familiar.

He cast a Disillusionment Charm, and moved to the front of the palace. It was a simple enough matter to cast Somnus on the guard and slip through the heavy cherry doors.

The entry hall was dark, but warm, and Draco shook the snow from his shoulders. He murmured a quick tracking spell, one that would at the very least detect the traces of magic. Snape had taught them the charm in Defence last term; Draco smiled grimly.

A gunshot echoed through the hallway, and Draco dropped all pretense at quiet, his feet pounding against the marble floor. Another shot followed, sharp and loud, and the tracking spell led Draco into a study, walls towering with books. The door opposite him was flung open and Purishkevich, short and bald, his full black beard the first thing one noticed, ran into the room.

"Felix!" he shouted, and there was the clatter of feet on the spiral iron staircase in the corner.

Yusupov ran up the steps, a revolver in his hand, smoke curling from the end. "Rasputin was dead." The prince looked at Purishkevich, his eyes wide, his hands trembling. "He was dead and then I bent down and his eye fluttered—and it opened, red eyes, Vladimir, _red_ \--and he lunged for me--" The prince stumbled, his knees hitting the floor. The revolver skittered across the rug.

He looked up. "I shot him again. And again. Three shots and poison--Lazavert swore it was enough cyanide to fell an entire battalion--and the man still--" Yusupov crossed himself. "On Theotokos's veil, I swear he's still alive."

Purishkevich stooped and grabbed the revolver. "Stay here."

Draco followed Purishkevich down the staircase. The wine cellar was wide and dry and a table had been set up on one end, covered with a damask cloth. Chinese vases stood in the corners, a bearskin rug had been tossed in front of the wine cupboard, and a Persian rug, scarlet and gold, spread across the stones in front of the hearth. A fire had burnt down to embers, black-orange sparks drifting up the brick chimney.

A burst of cold wind whipped through the room--the door across from the staircase was open, and Draco caught sight of Rasputin running across the courtyard, his black coat flapping at his heels.

"Shit." Purishkevich ran after him, the revolver clutched tight in his hand.

Rasputin spun around. "The tsaritsa will know," he shouted.

Purishkevich steadied himself, brought the gun up and fired. Once, twice, and each shot missed. He swore, and Rasputin ran towards the gate--he was almost there--Draco's stomach twisted. He couldn't make it--he _couldn't--_

And then a third shot slammed into Rasputin's back, and as he fell, a fourth cracked his skull, sending blood flying across the icy cobblestones.

Draco was shaking.

Purishkevich walked up to the body, the revolver still tight in his hand. He circled it slowly, then brought his boot up and slammed his foot into Rasputin's temple.

Draco could hear the awful crack of bone, the squelch of flesh. His knees gave out; he caught himself with one hand before he hit the cobblestones. Pain shot through his wrist. He didn't care.

Footsteps rang through the courtyard, and the two strangers Draco had seen earlier ran in.

"Vladimir--"

"He's dead, Lazavert." Purishkevich ran a hand over his black beard. "This time he's actually dead. Check him."

The taller man dropped to one knee next to Rasputin, his hand feeling along the man's throat. He nodded. "Near enough to call, I'd say." He looked up. "Help me drag him, Sukhotin."

Sukhotin grabbed Rasputin under one arm, Lazavert took the other. They dragged him through the courtyard, back into the cellar, leaving behind a wide wet streak of blood.

Draco pushed himself up, following behind, and his frozen fingers tugged at the lid of the soul trap. Until Rasputin's head fell back and Draco caught a thin gleam of red beneath black lashes.

His breath caught.

The staretz wasn't dead yet.

Rasputin's thin lips twisted to one side, baring sharp yellow teeth in a horrid semblance of a smile. 

The red eyes fixed on him, and Draco knew the staretz could see through the Disillusionment Charm. He stood still, Snape's wand clutched tight in one hand, the soul trap in his other.

_Mine, _Rasputin mouthed, and Draco's blood ran cold.__

__The cellar door slammed in his face._ _

____

\--------------------

Eileen heard the shattering of the wards on the back door first. She supposed she should be alarmed, but a quiet calmness draped over her. In some ways it was no different from the nights Tobias came home pissed, she supposed. Only in those instances she'd tried to ward Severus in his bedroom, to no avail. He'd always been far too good at unraveling the charms.

The front door exploded inward with a rush of wind, and Eileen faltered for a moment. She'd never seen such power--and then Dicky, God love him, stepped in front of her, golf club raised high.

"Get out or I'll call the constabulary," he said, and his voice only wavered slightly. Eileen was filled with an odd pride for her nephew.

The boy who stood in front of them couldn't be older than young Draco. His black hair was mussed, his glasses smudged with fingerprints that Eileen had an urge to wipe clean.

"Mr Potter," she said quietly, her wand fixed on his throat. "It's considered polite society to knock, you realise."

Potter blinked at her for a moment. He didn't lower his wand.

Smart lad. Eileen smiled thinly.

"We're here for Snape and Malfoy," Potter said, and his voice was harsh, strained. She felt a moment's sympathy for him. He was so young. Too young to have this mantle thrust upon him. "You might as well tell us where they are."

Two Aurors stepped in behind Potter, a tall black man and a woman with a shock of bright pink hair; another three appeared at the end of the sitting room. All their wands were trained on her.

"Aunt Eileen," Richard said softly, his golf club still raised.

Eileen met Potter's gaze evenly. "You know I can't do that." Her eyes flicked towards the pink-haired woman. She was watching Potter, her attention turned away just long enough for Eileen to grab her, jerking her forward and pressing her wand to the underside of the woman's jaw.

"Stay still," Eileen whispered into her ear. "Please."

The woman stopped struggling and drew a careful, even breath. Eileen felt her relax against her.

"Get your men out of my house," Eileen said to Potter, "and then we'll talk. Perhaps."

The boy hesitated, just long enough for his inexperience to show, glancing back at the black Auror behind him. The man nodded, just barely, and Potter looked back.

"All right." He looked at the Aurors. "Out then. But Kingsley and Tonks stay."

Eileen shook her head. Did he really think her to be a fool? "The girl stays. You stay. He goes."

Potter's mouth tightened and then he shrugged. "Fine. Then let's talk."

"Dicky," Eileen said calmly, watching the Aurors reluctantly leave. "Put on the kettle. I think this needs a cuppa."

\--------------------

Draco hadn't had a choice. He'd hoped he might intercept the conspirators again before they stuffed Rasputin into the car, but they'd all been on top of the staretz, rolling him into the heavy sailcloth, knotting the ropes. They'd downed an entire bottle of wine between the four of them during the process, to calm their nerves, and Draco wasn't entirely certain he blamed them.

He would have liked a glass or two himself.

The staretz's magic still crackled in the room, over his skin, and he didn't know how the Muggles could be unaware of it. What game was the bastard playing?

Draco paced the end of the study, still caught in his Disillusionment Charm, and he watched them heft the body between them, dragging him down the hall and outside into the cold, crisp air. Draco didn't dare look towards the corner of the palace, didn't dare chance that he might see himself--coming or going--it didn't matter.

Didn't dare contemplate seeing Snape there. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment. He could still see the red of Snape's blood spreading across the pristine snow--

The car chugged to a start, and he shook himself.

He had a task to accomplish.

Somehow.

The bridge was deserted when he Apparated beneath it, but he only had time to scramble behind a snowbank before he saw Snape's boots sliding across the snow, followed by his own. It was surreal to see this, to watch himself, and he blushed at the way he looked at Snape, the small sideways glances he couldn't seem to prevent.

No wonder Grindelwald had known about them. It wasn't as if he'd been discreet.

Not that Snape was much better, though. Draco smiled faintly as Snape stared at him when he hadn't been looking, his face open for once—-and Draco's breath caught at the look in his eyes.

How had he not known?

The crash of Rasputin's body into the icy water caught his attention, and he gripped Snape's wand tightly. He didn't know what to do, how he was to do it—-and then he saw Grindelwald move around the piling, wand raised and he had to do _something._

He could hear the words, could see the wizard's mouth form them, and he breathed in sharply. Sanguinarius—-and Draco cast the first defensive charm that came to his mind, a netting spell that glanced across the red burst of Sanguinarius, knocking it off course so that it struck Snape in the shoulder rather than the heart. He flew backwards into the snow, and Draco saw himself whirl about, and he ran down the riverbank, his Disillusionment slipping. He didn't care. He cast a protective charm around himself and Snape, and he knew it'd not be good enough, but at least it'd keep Grindelwald from noticing them long enough for him to leave.

He Summoned his wand from where it'd landed, halfway across the ice, and he tucked Snape's wand in his pocket. His magic thrummed through him, steady and familiar, and Draco's fingers curled around the grip gratefully.

Grindelwald had squatted over Rasputin's body, and Draco saw the eyes fly open, red and gleaming, and there wasn't enough time--

He swore, his feet slipping over the ice, and the strands of mist began to twine around Grindelwald, working their way around his body, and he was laughing--and for Merlin's sake, what the bloody _hell_ was it with the bloody laughter the damned soul seemed to enjoy?

Really, the sodding thing was beginning to get on Draco's last nerve.

"Hello, again," Draco said, wand raised, and he rather enjoyed the look of surprise on Grindelwald's face as he turned, looking from Draco to Draco--and Draco saw himself disappear, saw Snape looking over at him, his eyes dark against his pale face, and this was for him, Draco reminded himself.

Grindelwald lunged forward, and Draco tossed the _sjel felle_ forward, the lid open, and he heard the horrible scream of the soul as it was sucked into the black depths of the small box.

It slammed closed, and Draco Summoned it just before Grindelwald's fingers closed around it. He held it close to him.

"That," Draco said tightly, "was for my father and my mother, you bloody fuck of a bastard."

He barely managed to duck the jet of green light. 

"Draco--" Snape was struggling to sit up, and blood was soaking the sleeve of his coat. 

It took Draco a moment to scramble across the river, and he fell once, the soul trap tumbling from his hands. He crawled across the ice, flinching as a burst of blue exploded next to him, sending chips of ice flying up, stinging as they cut his cheek. The _sjel felle_ was cold against his fingers, and he clutched it close, reaching out for Snape just as a curse slammed into his back.

The pain blinded him and he lurched forward, Snape catching him, pulling him closer. He could smell blood and sweat and Snape was whispering something to him and he could hear Grindelwald's voice, shouting something, and he tightened his grasp on the trap as it jolted in his hand. 

"Severus," he choked out and Snape wrapped his arms around him, grabbing his wand from Draco's pocket.

They Apparated just as the green light struck the snowbank.

\--------------------

"You can't be serious." Harry stared at Snape's mother. "That's--I don't even know what it is--beyond ridiculous, I'd say."

Tonks took the cup of tea the Muggle handed her--Richard, she recalled his name being. She smiled her thanks as he sat down. "Harry."

"You can't tell me you actually believe her." Harry shook his head and pushed his cup of tea away, untouched. "Back in time?"

Tonks shrugged. "Nothing makes much sense at this point." She twisted her teacup between her hands, looking up at Eileen. "Are you lying?" she asked bluntly. 

"No," Eileen said simply, and Tonks believed her. Whether or not it was mad. 

She glanced over at Harry. "I think we need to send for Minerva." She hesitated. "She knows something she's not saying."

"Like what?" Harry pursed his mouth, his brows drawing together. Tonks recognised that mulish look all too well.

"I think it's time to ask," she said grimly. "Best send Kingsley."

Harry nodded and tugged on his fringe.

\--------------------

They landed on Draco's bed, breathing hard.

Severus rolled Draco over, wincing as pain shot through his shoulder, and he pulled at the tatters of Draco's coat. The hex had burned through the fabric, charring Draco's back. Pale skin was blackened; strips of linen seared to the flesh, and Severus closed his eyes, his stomach churning. 

He bent over Draco, pressing his wand to the burnt flesh. The boy whimpered, twisted beneath him, and Severus touched his hair lightly. "A moment," he said, his voice soft, and Draco nodded, biting his bottom lip. His cheek was streaked with blood, his own and Severus's--a distinct reminder of what could have been. What still could be.

Severus traced his wand across Draco's skin, muttering the words of the healing spell. Magic washed out of him, curling over Draco's back, and the charred bits slowly fell off, replaced by strips of puffy too-pink skin. There would be no way to stop the scarring, he was afraid. He'd not any dittany on hand, and even then, it wasn't entirely effective with these sorts of curses. 

Draco pushed himself up with a grimace. "Bloody hell," he murmured, his breath catching as he sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled Severus's coat and shirt off gingerly. 

The Sanguinarius had struck high on Severus's left shoulder, and the skin was torn and mangled, flesh laid bare to the bone. Draco's mouth thinned. 

"How do I do this?" he asked, looking up at Severus, and Severus touched his face lightly. 

_"Percurete umeribus,"_ Severus said, and Draco nodded, pressing the tip of his wand to the torn skin as he murmured the incantation.

Severus stiffened, biting back a scream, as the muscles jerked together, tendons and veins knitting once more. 

"It'll scar," Draco said, and he touched the pink cords radiating down Severus's arm.

"Yes." Severus sat there for a moment, then sighed. "We have to leave. Within the hour."

Draco nodded. "He'll find us, won't he?"

"Not if we hide well enough." Severus shifted on the edge of the bed, throat tight. "I can't go home, Draco. The Time-turner..." He trailed off, staring blankly into the fire. "There may be enough magic left for you to make it back."

There was a moment's silence, then Draco shook his head.

"Absolutely not." 

Severus looked at him, suddenly annoyed. "You will. It'll be safer--"

"If you think I'm leaving you here alone, you're off your nut." Draco's eyes were bright. "I'm not going home without you. And if that means--" He chewed his lip. "Well, I suppose it just means that I might end up wishing I'd paid a bit more attention to Binns's boring lectures."

"Draco," Severus began before he was cut off with a kiss. It was soft and warm and surprisingly gentle. 

Draco pulled back, his cheeks flushed. "It'd be worse for me if you sent me back. I couldn't bear--not without you, all right?" He looked at Severus then, grey eyes intense in a manner that Severus had never seen before, and that was all he needed to know. 

He dragged his thumb over Draco's mouth. "You're mad, you realise."

"Probably."

"You'll regret it."

"Then I'll figure out how to make the bloody Time-turner work." Draco kissed him again, and Severus thought perhaps nothing in the entire world mattered as much as the boy wrapped in his arms.

\--------------------

Draco slipped into the Grand Duchesses' bedroom silently. The moon lit the room through the wide paned windows, and he looked over at Maria, still asleep in her bed, curled into her pillow.

Anastasia sat up, rubbing at her eyes. Her hair hung in a long braid over one shoulder, tendrils hanging in her round face. "Draco?" she asked sleepily. "Is something wrong?"

He sat on the edge of her bed hesitantly. "I have to leave." At her protest, he shook his head. "There's been some trouble, and Severus and I--we have to go, Nastya. It's for the best, really, for everyone, and we did what we came to do." 

She bit her lip. "Should I ask?"

"No." Draco shook his head, and he glanced away. "Your parents will be angry, and you might be as well, but it had to be done." He ran a fingernail over the embroidery on her coverlet. "I had to do it. For my parents." He looked at her then. "Someday you'll understand, I hope."

Anastasia touched his arm. "Draco."

"Look, you have to listen to me, all right?" He caught her hand in his. "I shouldn't tell you this--if Severus were to find out--but anyway, there's going to come a day when the people who hate your father and your family are going to be in power. And they'll want to kill you. For no reason other than the blood that's in your veins." He sighed. "You may just be a Muggle, but I like you, damn it, and it's really not fair, that, just so you know. I'm not supposed to like Muggles--"

Anastasia slid her fingers between his. "What are you on about, Draco?"

Draco shook his head again. "Just listen. I've not much time and this is important. You can't die. I won't let it happen. So you should take this." He dug in his pocket and pulled out the silver brooch his mother had given him so long ago. She needed it more than he did now. "It's called a Portkey. When it's activated it'll take you somewhere. I don't know where--Mother never said. I wasn't to know, but it was someplace safe."

He pressed it in her hand and curled her fingers over it. "Hide it. Don't tell anyone about it. You'll need it on a July night. I won't tell you what year. But you'll know when. Promise me you'll use it."

The moonlight caught her pale face, shone in her solemn eyes. She nodded. "How do I activate it?"

"Press the dragon's eye and count to three in Latin." He eyed her. "You do know Latin, right?"

"Don't be an arse." Anastasia turned the brooch over in her hand. "It's pretty."

"It was my mother's." A twinge of sadness twisted through him. "It's the only thing I have of hers." 

She looked up at him, eyes wide. "You should keep it--"

"I told you," Draco said crossly. "You need it. So you damned well better use it."

Anastasia ran her thumb over the coil of the dragon. "Thank you," she said softly. 

"I have to go." Draco stood up, and he'd only gone a step or two before he turned around. "I think there's a good possibility that I might love him," he said in a rush, and he felt his cheeks flame. "I thought you should know, since you were so certain." 

She smiled at him, a wide, bright grin that lit her face. "I know."

"Cow." He made a face at her.

"Wait." Anastasia scrambled out of bed and dug in the side table. She pulled out a photograph, one she'd taken on their day in St Petersburg of the both of them, heads pressed together, hair blowing in the winter wind. She pressed it in his hand. 

Draco stared down at it, his throat tightening. "Thank you."

Anastasia nodded. "Papa--he makes mistakes, I know. And he listens to the wrong men sometimes." She bit her lip. "But he's not cruel. Not like they say--" She looked at Draco then, eyes bright, and she shrugged. "He's my Papa."

He touched her arm, a quick brush of his fingertips across her skin before he dropped his hand. "I know." 

Snape was waiting in the hall when he closed the door behind him. He handed Draco his valise. "Are you all right?"

Draco nodded, blinking hard. His eyes burned, and he felt like a fool. "Stupid Muggle girl."

Snape pulled him close, and his mouth pressed against Draco's temple. Draco leaned his head into Snape's shoulder, breathing out. He supposed he should be frightened. Instead he felt strangely safe. Content.

"Do you think we could find someplace a bit less frigid?" he murmured into Snape's shoulder, and Snape laughed, an oddly warm sound that shimmered down Draco's spine, made him smile.

"I think perhaps that might be arranged. For now at least."

They Disapparated together, arms wrapped around each other.

 

****

Chapter Seventeen

The old men stood on the kerb in front of their house, a black umbrella levitating between them, keeping most of the rain off. They wore rainjackets, even in late June. It was far too easy to feel the cold in one's bones, after all. Particularly in the damp.

They peered down the street, eyes fixed on the nearly invisible flurry of activity coming from the neighbour's rowhouse. If you didn't know what to look for, it would have been impossible to note.

They knew what to look for.

"We should probably go in," the smaller one said with a sigh. "Before Potter makes an utter tit of himself." 

His husband--after eighty-one years together, some tumultuous, most peaceful, they thought of themselves in those terms, laws and vicars be damned--his husband snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I suppose."

"There's really no reason to be nervous, Severus."

That earned Draco a dark glare. He shrugged it off. Over eighty years together also allowed one certain liberties that wouldn't be tolerated from others. Including being exactly aware of how one's husband felt at the moment, as much as Severus would prefer otherwise.

Not that he wasn't terrified himself. They'd known today was coming, of course; they'd planned for it for years. Still it was unsettling to have had it arrive--it had seemed so very far away, really. There was nothing more that he'd like to do than to run back to their house, to the assorted collective accoutrements of a life spent together, safe and isolated.

Albus Dumbledore had given them eighty years of life--eighty years that they had been unlikely to have otherwise, save in Azkaban. And now, whatever the end of today brought, it was time to repay him.

Draco slid his hand through the crook of Severus's elbow. "I think it's time you said hello to your mother again."

"Perhaps, yes," Severus said, almost wearily, and Draco's fingers moved across the twill of his sleeve, a soft pressure that Severus understood without the need for verbalisation.

Words were so seldom needed between them now.

They Apparated into the sitting room, sending Shacklebolt and Tonks reaching for their wands with a shout, throwing themselves like idiots in front of McGonagall and Potter.

As if that would protect them.

Draco rolled his eyes and closed the umbrella, tapping it lightly with his wand to miniaturise it before he dropped it into his pocket and tucked a stray lock of snow-white hair behind his ear.

Eileen stared at them, her teacup shaking in her hand, and when she stood, finally, it crashed to the floor, shattering against the faded wool carpet.

"Severus," she whispered, and all hell broke loose.

\--------------------

She was so young.

Severus couldn't take his eyes off of her.

Odd to see his mother this way, to realise that his body, at least, was nearly twice her age. She was staring at him, and he found it strange that she recognised him in this manner.

She set a cup of tea in front of him, black the way he preferred, and one in front of Draco, with just a touch of milk. Draco smiled up at her, touching her hand, and the sight of his husband interacting with his mother finally, after all these years, was nearly Severus's undoing.

"You're both _old."_ Potter stared at him, and Severus scowled, grateful at the opportunity for annoyance rather than maudlinity.

He curled his lip. "I am one hundred and nineteen years, Potter. Not a hundred and fifty. I am most certainly not _old."_

Potter snorted.

Draco gave Severus an amused look. "Not that you'd know that by the amount of potions he has to take every morning."

Severus narrowed his eyes, and Draco's mouth curved on one side. He squeezed Severus's hand lightly; Tonks's eyes flitted to Severus's face in surprise.

"I think, perhaps, Severus," Minerva said from her seat across the kitchen table, "that you should explain—-"

Draco broke in. "It's simple. The Dark Lord as you know him is only half as powerful as you think him to be."

Potter and Nymphadora exchanged glances; Kingsley leaned back in his chair. "That explains nothing, Malfoy," he said, running a hand over his bald pate.

Draco's white brows drew together in a scowl, and Severus pressed his foot against Draco's warningly. Draco slouched back in his seat sullenly. There were moments when Severus could still see the boy in his husband, eight decades be damned.

Minerva looked at Severus, eyes steady over the rims of her spectacles. "Albus asked you to kill him. He left a letter."

"Yes." Severus took a sip of tea. "He always told me that he knew he could trust me enough to do so." He shot a pointed look at Potter. "It wasn't until we went into time that I discovered how he could say that. There were two halves of a soul, one of which we were sent to collect; I'm quite certain your letter said that as well."

Minerva nodded. "With instructions not to share what he was telling me until you returned." She looked at him over her spectacles. "I find it interesting that he was certain you would."

"There was no other choice." Severus frowned into his tea and sighed. "I suppose you should know the entire tale."

It took nearly half an hour to sketch out what had happened, so many years ago. So few days ago. They listened in near silence, Potter and Minerva interrupting only for clarification. 

His throat closed at one point, and Richard handed him a fresh cup of tea, his hand curved lightly over Severus's thin shoulder. 

When he finished, Minerva pressed her knuckles to her mouth. "And you found Albus."

Severus's mouth twisted to one side. "We went to him when Grindelwald rose to power. We had the soul; we'd kept it hidden for nearly twenty years. It was quite easy enough to hide in Australia, particularly from a rising Dark Lord who'd far prefer to control Europe as a whole."

"And then you came back." Potter sounded sceptical. 

Draco's eyes narrowed in a dangerous way Severus knew all too well. "Unlike you, Potter, we're not idiots. Since we'd heard rumours even in Sydney from wizards who'd managed to escape Europe that Grindelwald hadn't entirely ceased his search for the soul, it seemed a good idea to speak with Dumbledore."

"Who, I suspect, advised you to continue to keep the soul in hiding." Minerva gave Potter an even look, and the boy sank back into his chair with a sigh. 

"You knew him well." Severus raised an eyebrow at her; she flushed slightly and glanced away. "When we told him what had occurred, he thought it best that we safeguard the soul. After all we'd gone through--" Severus looked at Draco. The scars were still there, twisted across his back, faded white now, but Severus felt them every night beneath his fingertips. "I can assure you, Mr Potter, we were not bloody likely to allow it to fall into inappropriate hands."

"You could have destroyed it." Potter leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Why not? Are we supposed to believe you kept it this long—-Merlin, this is mad—-without even thinking of returning it to Voldemort?"

"Why would we want to do that?" Draco burst out, and he shoved his teacup back. "You stupid _tit--_ "

Severus didn't entirely blame him. He glared at Potter, his jaw tight. "Do let your biases go for the moment, Potter. As for not destroying it—-" He exchanged a glance with Draco and sighed, reaching into his coat. He pulled the small black box out, worn and faded now, but the runes glowed faintly. "There _is_ a prophecy, after all." He met Potter's eyes. " _Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives_."

"You mean..." Potter trailed off, looking at the box in distaste.

Severus pushed it towards him. "Only you can destroy him." His mouth twisted to one side. "Do imagine how very appalling living with that knowledge has been."

Potter held the box between his hands. "How do I-—" He looked up at Severus. "I don't know what to do."

"Yes," Severus said quietly. "You do."

The room was silent as Potter stared at the box, then with shaking hands pulled out his wand, licking his bottom lip. "What if I-—"

"Harry," Nymphadora whispered, her dark eyes fixed on him. " Do it."

Potter hesitated only a moment, and then, his jaw tight, he thrust his wand into the centre of the lid, pressing through the heavy wood as if it were butter. The runes flamed, white-gold light rising from them, filling the room, pulsating, and the scream twisted around them, eighty-one years of fury exorcised in a burst of pain.

The echoes faded away, leaving the room shaking and silent.

"Bloody sodding hell," Richard whispered, his face pale.

"Indeed." Severus was tired. They'd been guardians for so long, he and Draco, and now-- 

Draco's hand closed over his, their fingers twining together. 

Now it was done.

\--------------------

Eileen did the washing up by hand, rather than magic. She needed the feel of water running over her hands, needed the moments alone to gather her thoughts.

Nymphadora had taken Draco to see his mother at his request, and Severus had been ensconced in the library with Potter, Shacklebolt and McGonagall for the last half hour—-after he'd promised Richard an hour to answer all the questions he'd begun peppering him with. After the third inquiry referencing the Novikov self-consistency principle, Severus had hexed his cousin's mouth shut. 

Eileen was grateful for the silence.

"You're angry." Severus stood at the doorway, alone, and she nearly dropped her mother's teapot. She set it aside to drain, and turned, wiping her hands on the teatowel. 

"No."

It was strange to see him like this. He was old, her son, and his dark hair was now white, and the long locks were caught loosely at his neck with a tie. His face had a few wrinkles-—jowls now, and deep creases around his black eyes, and his mouth turned down further at the corners. 

But he was still her Severus. Her little boy.

She pulled him to her and buried her face in his shoulder. "You might have come by—-"

"I couldn't." He shook his head. "We couldn't take the chance of running into our selves at any point. Even with Albus, it was difficult at times." He touched her face. "But we came to Leeds a year past. I needed to watch you at least. Make certain that damned Pyrites wasn't cocking up."

"Language," Eileen murmured and she folded the tea towel and set it aside. "The Time-turner--"

"Entirely drained." Severus sighed and looked away. "We considered making another one, but without Albus's notes—-" He curled his hands in his pockets. "It was difficult."

"And the difficulty stopped you?" Eileen raised her eyebrow. "Severus. The truth please."

Severus looked away. "It was safer to stay away. And Albus insisted. He wanted to give us an opportunity to live. Without the threat of Azkaban or the Dark Lord."

"Yes." That she could understand. "I would have suggested the same."

"Albus thought you might."

Eileen snorted. "I have to ask, however. How did you manage to keep Grindelwald from betraying you to the Dark Lord? From what Albus's notes said, he passed himself on to His Lordship--"

"Albus took his memories of us before he killed him," Severus glanced back at her, and she knew the twist of pain that crossed his face. "Before he could tell His Lordship. They weren't passed on with the soul."

Eileen slipped her arm around her son and he pulled her close. She still fit beneath his chin, and that thought made her laugh into his chest. 

"What?" he asked, pulling back and looking at her, and she shook her head and kissed his cheek.

"You and Draco then, the two of you--" She hesitated for only a moment. "You'd best tell me that you've made an honest man of the boy." 

Severus smiled faintly. "We've had some difficult moments at times. But yes."

"Good." Eileen touched his cheek. "I'd rather you not have been alone all this time."

Severus was silent for a moment and then he sighed. "I've eight decades worth of things to tell you."

"Should I put the kettle on again?" Eileen raised an eyebrow, and Severus snorted. 

"Perhaps."

Eileen reached for the teapot.

\--------------------

The house was dark when Draco Apparated home, exhausted.

Mother hadn't known him at first—-she'd thought he was Grandfather Abraxas, and Draco had never known how much he resembled his father's father.

And then, she'd understood what he was trying to tell her, and he'd held her as she cried. She'd lost them both now, he knew, Father and himself, and it was devastating her, tearing her fragile mind apart.

Aunt Andromeda had taken him aside once Mother'd calmed, and she'd promised him she'd care for her. "She's my sister," she'd said calmly, flatly, "and I won't have her put away, either in Azkaban or St Mungo's. But she needs you as much, even if she can't entirely see that at the moment."

Draco had nodded and thanked her and told her he'd come back the next day to see her. To bring her pictures. To tell her stories about his life.

His life.

He stopped in the sitting room and turned on a Tiffany lamp, bought in New York City sixty years past. Warm golden light spilled across the walls, over the bookcases and the side tables adorned by eighty years of memories. A photograph, faded sepia, of a silver-haired boy and a laughing, snow-covered princess. He and Severus had attended Nastya's funeral a decade ago in Sydney, surrounded by their half-blood godchildren and two further generations of the girl's wretched whelps as Severus called them.

There were other photographs. Muggle ones, wizarding ones, many from Australia—-they'd favoured the busy streets of Sydney and Melbourne--others from locales around the world. America. Paris. India. Canada. Wales, even--a lonely stretch of countryside they'd found after Grindelwald had been defeated. Most of himself-—Severus had always been the one to insist on taking the pictures. 

There were some of a young boy, mixed in here and there. A pale, blond boy, with a pointed jaw and bright blue eyes. 

His son. _Their_ son.

Father would have been proud of the boy; he was a Malfoy, through and through.

Draco sat down in an armchair, a picture of Linus in his hand. His son was fifty-five now, and a father himself, about to be a grandfather, a fact which Severus preferred _not_ to consider. 

He'd almost lost Severus over Linus. Had lost him, really, for at least a little while. They'd been so distant at that time. He'd been forty-three and they _had_ been together twenty-six years and—-

But there'd been no excuse for it. Not in the end, though both of them had been to blame for what had led up to the affair, the silences interspersed with fights.

It had torn them apart for three years, the pregnancy had. Severus had walked out the night he'd heard, fleeing to Canada, and Draco had fallen apart, spending the next eighteen months pissed out of his mind. 

The only thing that had pulled him together had been Linus, left to him when Victoria had died unexpectedly. The boy had been almost three, and Draco, not knowing what else to do, had asked Nastya for help. Two weeks later, Severus had shown up at the door, taking the crying child from a badly sleep-deprived Draco with only the words _I made a vow_ spoken between them. 

Linus had quieted immediately.

And Severus had never left again.

"It _is_ mid-day in Adelaide, if you wish to Floo call."

Draco looked up. Severus sat on the arm of the chair, a glass of wine in his hand, his dressing gown tied tightly around his thin waist.

"I was just thinking." Draco set the picture aside. Even after all these years, Linus still quietly idolised his step-father. And there were still times Draco was mildly jealous of that fact, though he could understand it, he supposed. Severus was Severus after all. He took the glass from his husband and sipped the wine slowly. The merlot was a good vintage, from one of the bottles they'd bought in France that spring.

Severus waited patiently.

"Where do we go next?" Draco asked quietly. "All these years and now it's done with-—"

Severus silenced him with a kiss, long and slow and as gentle as the night Draco had fallen in love with him. "There's always more. You know that. And we're young still." He smirked.

"Bastard." Draco curled his fingers around Severus's. "You did promise not to die on me any time soon."

"Morbid thought, that." Severus took his glass of wine back, his thumb rubbing over the rim. 

The fire crackled in the hearth. Only old men had fires in June, Draco thought, amused. Odd how young Severus made him feel. Like a boy again, foolish and impulsive and utterly in love—-

"And His Lordship? What do we do about the war?"

"Let the others fight it." Severus leaned his head against Draco's. "I'm weary. And this isn't a battle for old men any longer."

He was right. Draco knew it; Albus had told them the same thing not a month past. This was a battle for Potter, and for Nymphadora, and Shacklebolt. And even, he supposed, for Granger and the Weasel.

"I want to go home," Draco said, looking up at Severus. 

"Your mother—-"

"Andromeda will look after her. It'd be best, really." Draco stared into the fire. "And I'm quite certain Nymphadora would help us set up an international Floo. We could take your mother back--"

"She's already agreed." Severus smiled over the rim of the wineglass. "And Dicky's muttering about research possibilities at one of the Group of Eight." 

Draco looked at him in surprise.

Severus shrugged. "There's little for him here. And I suppose one might say I miss our wretched family as well." 

And when Severus looked at him in _that_ particular way, Draco took the glass of wine from him and set it aside. "Let's pack this bloody house and go home."

Home to the Harbour and to Oxford Street and to Severus cursing the bloody _Morning Herald_ over breakfast.

Draco curled his hand around his husband's gnarled fingers, kissing his knuckles gently.

Home.

Nothing in the world had ever sounded so right.


End file.
